/^y^W^ flxM^rn ^/^nsrvj! 

LECTURES 



ON THE 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, 



DELIVERED AT THE 



UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. 



DURING THE SESSION" OF 1850-1. 



NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER k BROTHERS, 
530 BROADWAY 



1 8 5 9. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S51, 
BY ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of 'New York. 



STEREOTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH* 
216 WILLIAM STREET, 



Cnntettk 



i, 

PAGK 

Man Responsible for his Belief. By Rev. William S. Plumer, D.D. 
Baltimore, Md. . . . .1 

II. 

The Necessity of a Revelation: and the Condition of Man with- 
out it. By Rev. A. B. Van Zandt. Petersburg, Va. . . .21 

III. 

MlRACLESj CONSIDERED AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. By ReV. 

Henry Ruffner, D.D., LL.D. Kanawha, Va 5£« 

IY. 

Prophecy. By Rev. Alexander T. M'Gill, D.D. Alleghany, Pa. . 10'J 

Y. 

The Authority of the Sacred Canon and the Integrity of the 
Sacred Text. By Rev. F. S. Sampson, D.D. Hampden Sidney, Va. 1 11 

YI. 

The Character of Jesus Christ, an Argument for the Divine Origii* 
of Christianity. By Rev. James W. Alexander, D.D. New York 193 

YII. 

The Success of Christianity an Evidence of its Divine Origin; 
with some Observations on the Celebrated Secondary Causes 
of Mr. Gibbon. By Rev. Moses D. Hoge. Richmond, Va. . .213 

YIII. 



Inspiration of the Scriptures: Morell's Theory Discussed and Re- 
futed. By Rev. T. V. Moore. Richmond, Va. . . . .267 



IV 



CONTEXTS. 



IX. 

PJkOB 

The Nature of Christianity, as shown to be a Perfect and Final 
System of Faith and Practice, and not a Form in Transitu to 
a Higher and more Complete Development of the Religious 
Idea. By Rev. John Miller. Philadelphia 303 



X. 

The General Internal Evidence of Christianity. By Rev. Robert 
J. Breckenbridge, D.D., LL.D. Lexington, Ky 321 



XL 

Popular Objections to Christianity. By Rev. B. M. Smith. 

Staunton, Va 365 



XII. 

The Ethnological Objection: the Unity of the Human Race. By 
Rev. T. V. Moore. Richmond, Va 409 



XIII. 

The Harmony of Revelation and Natural Science: with Special 
Reference to Geology. By Rev. L. W. Green, D.D. Hampden 
Sidney, Va. 457 



XIY. 

The Difficulties of Infidelity. By Rev. Stuart Robinson. Frank- 
fort, Ky 521 



XY. 



The Moral Effects of Christ a.nity. By Rev. N. L. Rice, D.D. 
Cincinnati, Ohio . . . 569 



To prevent misapprehension and enhance the interest of this volume, it 
may be proper to sketch briefly the history of the University Df Virginia, and 
to give some account of the origin of the following course of lectures on the 
Evidences of Christianity. This task seems naturally to devolve on the 
undersigned, who was Chaplain in that institution at the time of the delivery 
of these lectures. 

It is a familiar fact that this distinguished State University was brought 
into being mainly by the exertions of the illustrious Thomas Jefferson — a 
man of versatile genius and varied literary accomplishments, if not of sound 
logical talent and profound erudition ; one personally conversant with the 
most advanced forms of civilization in his day, yet thoroughly devoted to all 
that belonged distinctively to the structure of society and form of govern- 
ment in America, and ever desirous to contribute all in his power to the 
advancement of his country. He was fully possessed with the American idea 
as to the necessity of education and good morals among the people at large. 
And after his withdrawal from the national service, nothing seems to have 
engaged his thoughts and active exertions so much as the intellectual eleva- 
tion of that State in which he was born, and in which was his fixed residence 
through his whole lifetime. 

As early as the year 1814, in a private letter to a friend in Albemarle 
County, he proposed a scheme for a State College, and in 1816 the Legisla- 
ture took the initiatory step in the execution of his scheme. In the Session 
of 1817-18, Mr. Jefferson drew up two bills, having for their object the 
establishment of a system of public instruction for the State, namely, 1st, A 
Bill providing for elementary schools, and 2d (introduced a little later), A 
Bill making provision for an extensive system of public schools. This latter 
bill embraced the provisions of the former, and further provided for a num- 
ber of Colleges and a Central University. In accordance with the spirit of 
these bills, an act was passed February 21st, 1818, applying from the reve- 
nue of the Literary Fund, forty-five thousand dollars annually to primary 
schools, and fifteen thousand dollars annually for the endowment of an 
University. A Committee, of which Mr. Jefferson was Chairman, appointed 



vi 



PREFACE. 



by the Legislature, among other purposes, for naming a suitable location for 
the proposed University, met at Rockfish Gap, on the Blue Ridge Mountain, 
and decided in favor of the site of the Central College, an embryo institution 
gotten up by private subscription of the friends of science, Mr. J. at their 
head, and located near Charlottesville, Albemarle County. The Legislature 
accepted the suggestion of the Committee ; so that the Central College, 
including all its appurtenances, was absorbed into the University. The 
beautiful eminence selected for the buildings lay about five miles distant 
from Monticello, but in full view. 

The whole plan of the institution, in respect of buildings, studies, instruc- 
tion, and government, originated in the prolific mind of its devoted founder. 
With great discrimination and independence of mind, he culled from extant 
ideas and wrought out his own conclusions, some of which were novel and 
of undecided expediency, but are now gaining ground, as wise, practical 
principles. From the time of the passage of the final bill, January 25th, 
1819, until the day of his death, July 4th, 1826, the venerable statesman 
seemed to possess the fire and activity of youth, so great was the assiduity 
and energy with which he gave his personal attention to all the details of 
the designing and erection of extensive and elaborate buildings, and to all 
the numberless features, great and small, connected with the establishment 
of a first-class University. He was spared to behold his long-cherished 
scheme successfully consummated. On the 25th day of March, 1825, its 
halls were thrown open for the reception of students. Its distinguished 
Father continued to watch over it, and treated its students w T ith paternal 
kindness and attention. But in little more than one year his great spirit was 
summoned from the scene of his honorable and useful labors. 

The University went into operation with eight professors and one hundred 
and twenty-three students. The average number of students up to this date 
has been over two hundred. For several years past there has been a 
sound and constant growth. The number of students now is about four 
hundred : and there are nine professors, one lecturer, one adjunct professor, 
and three tutors, making the corps of instructors to number fourteen in all. 

It is a fact of general interest, that the subject of theology is omitted in 
the plan of studies, and no provision is made for having religious worship in 
the University. This omission has sometimes been ascribed to peculiarities 
in Mr. Jefferson's religious belief. It is not to be denied that amidst the 
violent agitations in the public mind during the latter part of the last 
century, throughout the civilized world, and the overthrow of many long- 
venerated opinions, Mr. Jefferson became as skeptical concerning the divine 
right of Christianity as he did concerning the divine right of Monarchy. 
But he studiously concealed his sentiments upon this subject during hi? 
whole life. " My religion is known to God and myself alone," he wrote 
within a few years of his death. Only to his most confidential friends did 



PREFACE. 



vii 



he ever communicate any part of his religious opinions. He is not known 
to have ever made any attempt to propagate his views, or in any direct and 
open manner to interfere with the success of Christianity. The publication 
of his private correspondence has indeed disclosed fully his errors and bitter- 
ness respecting Christianity, but as the object of these lines is to present 
facts and views not generally noticed, I shall not farther allude to the melan- 
choly revelations of those posthumous papers. 

The absence of authorized religious instruction in the University is not 
justly attributable to Mr. Jefferson's single influence, nor is it in itself a 
proof of hostility to our religion. Christianity in Virginia, particularly 
among the more cultivated classes, was certainly at a point of great depres- 
sion in those days, when memories of corrupt and despised Church establish- 
ments were still vivid, and when the wave of French infidelity which had 
rolled across, and had lashed the very base of the Blue Ridge, had not yet 
subsided to its parent depths. But in the opinion of many of those best 
qualified to judge, no greater favor could have been done to the cause of 
true religion than to save it from the dubious fate of falling again into the 
unconsecrated hands of State authorities. Virginia, ever shuddering with 
recollections of the past, and ever having before her eyes the jealousies of 
Christian sects, and the fierce discords in sister States, has uniformly decided 
that portentous and much-debated question as to the proper combination 
of religious and secular instruction, particularly in State schools, by leaving 
out the religious element entirely from her government institutions, yet 
never interfering with its introduction by private means, which do not inter- 
fere with religious equality. 

In the arrangement of the University system, this subject was not left to 
go by mere default. It is interesting to find in the original scheme drawn 
up by Mr. Jefferson, and submitted to the Legislature of 1818, that it is 
proposed to leave a space in a conspicuous part of the grounds, which might 
be needed at some future time for a large building to be used among other 
purposes "for religious worship, under such impartial regulations as the 
Visitors shall prescribe." In the same document occurs the following perti- 
nent paragraph : — 

" In conformity with the principles of our constitution, which places all 
sects of religion on an equal footing, with the jealousies of different sects in 
guarding that equality from encroachment and surprise, and with the senti- 
ments of the Legislature in favor of freedom of religion, manifested on for- 
mer occasions, we have proposed no professor of divinity ; and the rather, 
as the proofs of the being of God, the creator, preserver, and supreme ruler 
of the universe, the author of all the relations of morality, and of the laws 
and obligations these infer, will be within the province of the professor of 
ethics ; to which, adding the developments of these moral obligations, of 
those in which all sects agree, with the knowledge of the languages, He- 



riii 



PREFACE. 



brew, Greek and Latin, a basis will be formed ctmm^n to all sects. Pro- 
ceeding thus far without offence to the constitution, we have thought it 
proper at this point to have every sect provide as they think fittest, the means 
of further instruction in their own peculiar tenets." 

Two years before the University went into operation, the idea contained 
in the concluding clause of the above extract was clearly and fully developed 
by Mr. Jefferson in a Report written by him, and sanctioned by the other 
members of the Board of Visitors, to the President and Directors of the 
Literary Fund. So true and excellent are the general views, and so novel 
and interesting is the proposition, contained in this Report, that it is worthy 
of being quoted entire, with the single omission of the paragraph copied above, 
which is made to form the opening of the Report. The document continues, 
" It was not, however, to be understood that instruction in religious opinions 
and duties was meant to be precluded by the public authorities, as indiffer- 
ent to the interests of society. On the contrary, the relations which exist 
between man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, 
are the most interesting and important to every human being, and the most 
incumbent on his study and investigation. The want of instruction in the 
various creeds of religious faith existing among our citizens presents therefore 
a chasm in a general institution of the useful sciences : but it was thought 
that this want, and the entrustment to each society of instruction in its own 
doctrines, were evils of less danger than a permission to the public authori- 
ties to dictate modes or principles of religious instruction, or than opportuni- 
ties furnished them of giving countenance or ascendency of any one sect over 
another. A remedy, however, has been suggested, of promising aspect, 
which while it excludes the public authorities from the domain of religious 
freedom, would give to the sectarian schools of divinity the full benefit of 
the public provisions made for instruction in the other branches of science. 
These branches are equally necessary to the Divine as to the other profes- 
sional or civil characters, to enable them to fulfil the duties of their calling 
with understanding and usefulness. It has therefore been in contemplation, 
and suggested by some pious individuals, who perceive the advantages of 
associating other studies with those of religion, to establish their religious 
schools on the confines of the University, so as to give to their schools ready 
and convenient access and attendance on the scientific lectures of the Uni- 
versity : and to maintain, by that means, those destined for the religious 
professions on as high a standing of science and of personal weight and 
respectability, as may be obtained by others from the benefits of the Univer- 
sity. Such establishments would offer the further and great advantage of 
enabling the students of the University to attend religious exercises with 
the professor of their particular sect, either in the rooms of the building still 
to be erected, and destined to that purpose under impartial regulations, as 
proposed in the same Report of the Commissioners, or in the lecturing room 



PREFACE. 



of such professor. To such propositions the visitors are disposed to lend a 
willing ear, and would think it their duty to give every encouragement, by 
assuring those who might choose such a location for their schools, that the 
regulations of the University should be so modified and accommodated as 
to give every facility of access and attendance to their students, with such 
regulated use also as may be permitted to the other students, of the library 
which may hereafter be acquired, either by public or private munificence, 
but always understanding that these schools shall be independent of the 
University and of each other. Such an arrangement would complete the 
circle of the useful sciences embraced by this institution, and would fill the 
chasm now existing, on principles which would leave inviolate the constitu- 
tional freedom of religion, the most inalienable and sacred of all human 
rights, over which the people and authorities of this State, individually and 
publicly, have ever manifested the most watchful jealousy : and could this 
jealousy be now alarmed in the opinion of the Legislature by what is here 
suggested, the idea will be relinquished on any surmise of disapprobation, 
which they might think proper to express." 

The general sentiments in this paper with regard to the importance of 
religious inquiry, not only are just and expansive, but form a very appro- 
priate introduction to a volume such as that now presented to the public, 
and furnish an ample vindication of the propriety of having such a course 
of lectures delivered in the institution. This scheme of Mr. Jefferson's, al- 
though never opposed by any State authority, has been met by no response 
from the ' sects,' who perhaps were unwilling to range themselves as satellites 
around this great orb of secular science. 

Although religion, didactic or devotional, has never had an acknowledged 
legal existence in the institution, yet since the third year after the University 
went into operation it has always had a footing and a welcome among the 
practical observances. By the year 1828, arrangements had been made by 
the faculty in their private capacity for regular weekly service within the 
walls of the University by the Episcopal and Presbyterian clergymen of 
Charlottesville, alternately. In the year 1830 a Presbyterian clergyman of 
Philadelphia accepted the invitation of the faculty to act as Chaplain to the 
institution. A systematic arrangement for securing regular religious worship 
was consummated in 1831, by which an annual appointment of a Chaplain 
was made from each of the four principal denominations in the State, in rota- 
tion. In 1.848 the appointment of Chaplain was made for two years instead 
of one, the same system of rotation being continued. Since 1831 the com- 
pensation of the Chaplair has been made by the voluntary contributions of 
the officers and students. With a Chapel, a Chaplain, two services each 
Sabbath, a weekly prayer-meeting, a Sabbath-school, daily morning prayers, 
together with entire cordiality and accessibility on the part of all concerned, 
Christianity is now established at the University of Virginia on a basis 



PREFACE. 



which secures to it as much purity and efficiency as could be :ixpected in 
such an institution. 

The lectures embraced in this volume contain nothing sectarian. They 
are fully within the domain of our common Christianity. They are couched 
in the language of love, and are designed not to insult, but kindly to reasor 
with, the unbeliever. In reading these pages let every one bear in mind the 
truth so forcibly stated by Mr. Jefferson, that "the relations which exist be- 
tween man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, are 
the most interesting and important to every human being, and the most 
incumbent on his study and investigation." 

Much space need not be consumed in detailing the origin and history of 
this Course of Lectures. No such course ever had been delivered in the 
University, and its delivery was designed to narrow 4 the chasm' of which 
Mr. Jefferson speaks. The only point which seems to need explanation is 
the fact that all the lecturers were chosen from one denomination of Chris- 
tians. This was a point of much deliberation, and the plan adopted was 
considered the most likely to secure in the end the best and widest results. 
It was hoped that our example would be followed by the other denomina- 
tions, as they in turn had possession of the Chaplaincy. And thus only 
could all be allowed an equal opportunity. The material being inexhausti- 
ble, let each denomination draw up its own schedule, select its own cham- 
pions of the faith, and publish its own volume of lectures, and thus, and 
thus alone, might we hope to have the flower of American Christian intellect 
in the several churches engaged in a united assault upon the ranks of 
infidelity. 

It is enough to say as to the ability of these lectures, that they are the 
best efforts of their distinguished authors. May God our Saviour use them 
for the extension of his kingdom, and to his name be the praise. 

W. H. RUFFNER. 

Philadelphia, December, 1851. 



ntt HiapwiMt far JrtB Itlht 



WILLIAM S. PLUMER, D.D., 

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND. 



THOUGHTS WORTH REMEMBERING-. 



Aut undique religionem tolle, aut usquequaque con- 
serva. — Cicero. 

The way to hell is easy, for men can find it with their 
eyes shut. — Castruccio Cast/racanni. 

That those persons should tolerate all opinions, who 
think none to be of estimation, is a matter of small merit. 
Equal neglect is not impartial kindness. — BurJce. 

Pride of opinion and arrogance of spirit are entirely 
opposed to the humility of true science. — Locke. 

The fact is, men are not always in a mood to be con- 
vinced. — Logan. 

"Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a 
little child, shall in no wise enter therein. — Jesus Christ. 

Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the 
law of revelation, depend all human laws. — Blackstone. 

It is not only the difficulty and labor which men take 
in finding out of truth ; nor again, that when it is found, 
it imposeth on men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in fa- 
vor, but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. — 

Bacon. 

Men are ready to believe everything when they believe 
nothing. They have diviners, when they cease to have 
prophets, witchcraft, when they cease to have religious 
ceremonies ; they open the caves of sorcery, when they 
shut the temples of the Lord. — Chateaubriand. 

If I would choose what would be most delightful, and 
I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm re- 
ligious belief to every other blessing. — Sir Humphrey 
Davy. 



My Respected Friends : — 

If the course of lectures, the first of wliich is low to be 
delivered, shall be worthy of any attention, they will justly claim 
your greatest candor, your most ardent love of truth, and your 
utmost docility of temper. It will be unworthy of you as men, 
and as lovers of knowledge, it will be nnphilosophical, I think 
too it will be wicked for you to attend these discussions for the 
purpose of blindly receiving or rejecting whatever may be said. I 
bespeak your utmost ingenuousness in listening to the arguments 
that may be offered. "Buy the truth, and sell it not." Your 
eternal life is the stake involved in the solemn inquiry to be made 
into the truth of Christianity ; for if the Scriptures be not true, 
there remain to us only darkness and lamentation. 

There is found extensively diffused among men a book, called 
The Bible. Besides other lessons, it teaches that one of the 
highest exercises of virtue is faith, and that one of the most hei- 
nous sins is unbelief. It makes salvation to depend upon the for- 
mer, and a loss of the Divine favor to be the fruit of the latter. 
It often and clearly settles these points. It says : " Without 
faith, it is impossible to please God and, "He that believeth not 
is condemned already." 

Nevertheless, men are found who utterly reject this book as a 
revelation, some without inquiry, but not without scoffs, and some 
with a vain show of reasoning, but evidently without thorough 
and fair examination. Of the latter class, are those who insist 
that man is not, because he ought not to be, accountable for his 
belief in any matter, that faith is involuntary, and so not proper 
ground of praise or blame, reward or punishment. This opinion 
has some prevalence, and is worthy of examination at the begin- 
ning of a course of lectures on the evidences of Christianity. If it 
be true, the whole Christian system fails of the authority which it 
claims. Before entering on the main question, a few preliminary 
observations are proper. 



4 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



Truth is the great and proper object of the mind of man, and 
may with safety be pursued to any length whatever. There is 
no danger in giving up any error, or in embracing any truth. 
Forsaking truth, and embracing error, angels shrunk into devils. 
Forsaking error and grasping truth, sinners rise to the dignity of 
saints, and to the companionship of angels. 

The resemblance oetween truth and error is often so great as to 
call for the most patient inquiry, and for the soundest discrimina- 
tion. Prejudice and passion are enemies to truth, and will defeat 
any quest after knowledge. All truths and all errors are not 
equally evident. Some of the most important truths bear no 
marks of credibility whatever, when first presented to the mind. 
And some of the most serious errors often for a while seem to be 
truths. Numerous instances, drawn from every branch of knowl- 
edge, might easily be given. 

All truths are not equally important. Some we may never 
know, and yet attain all the highest ends of existence. But some 
have such a scope and bearing that it behooves all men to seek and 
find them, and then to hold them fast. Such are the great truths 
of religion. It cannot promise the slightest utility to reason with 
one who admits that there is a God, and yet cannot be brought to 
see that our relations to Him are momentous. 

Though mere intellectual belief is not saving faith, yet, by the 
laws of the human mind, the former is a necessary foundation of 
the latter. When a man so believes as to be saved, his heart 
makes no war upon his understanding, his faith is not contrary to 
his judgment and reason. It is a glory peculiar to Christianity 
that it requires our religion to be a " reasonable service." " Let 
every man be fully persuaded in his own mind" is one of its 
oracles. No man &cts more wisely and rationally than when he 
solemnly and earnestly believes all religious truth. 

An early Christian writer says : "He, who believes the Scrip- 
ture to have proceeded from Him who is the author of nature, 
may well expect to find the same sort of difficulties in it as are 
found in the constitution of nature." And as the author of nature 
is confessedly the author of all truth, the argument from analogy 
is both legitimate and important on religious subjects. It does, 
indeed, furnish no direct evidence of any religious truth. But if 
difficulties, presented against religion, can be shown to lie with 
equal force against the constitution and course of nature, they can 
no longe* be urged as valid objections. The nature of the subject 



• 



MAN EESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



5 



now to be discussed renders a resort to analogy entirely proper. 
The chief use of analogy in argument is to silence cavillers. 

The connection between cause and effect in the moral world is 
as close as in the physical. Error will give trouble to the traveller 
to a distant city. May it not be fatal to the traveller to eternity? 
The former feels the consequences of mistake for a short time, the 
latter for endless ages. The plague produces pains, blotches, and 
death. Sin is more dire in its effects. No signals of distress are 
so appalling as those held out by men living or dying under moral 
maladies. 

Let us now examine the statement that man is not, and ought 
not to be, accountable for his faith. At this point it is proper to 
make a few remarks on the grounds of belief in general. Every 
man finds his mind so constituted that it cannot but believe some 
things. Consciousness informs him that he exists, thinks, wills, 
loves, and hates. On these and like points he needs no other 
ground of belief. It is folly to seek it. This is adapted to the 
subject, and is complete. When a man tells me that I have the 
power of reflection, he gives me no new information, and no more 
evidence of the fact than I had before. 

Man also believes some things by an intuitive perception of 
their truth. The whole is greater than a part, two are more than 
the half of three, a proposition, admitting of but one construction, 
cannot be both true and false, are truths so obvious to every sober 
mind, that to announce them is to prove them, to understand 
them is to believe them. To demand argument in support of 
them, is like calling for candles to show us an unclouded sun. 
We believe such things because we cannot, without violence to 
the constitution of our minds, deny or doubt them. 

Again, mathematical demonstrations built upon the axioms of 
that science command our belief. The very lowest penalty for 
expressing a doubt of a proposition thus proven is the contempt 
of mankind. In long mathematical processes errors may indeed 
occur, but where each premise and each step are clear, our assent to 
results, however surprising, is most reasonable. Thus accounts ar.> 
settled, seas navigated, countries partitioned, and nations divided. 

Logical reasonings on moral subjects may be as fair and as con- 
clusive as mathematical demonstrations. Parents should provide 
for their helpless children, children are bound to the offices of 
filial piety, the mother who cares not for her own offspring is a 
monster, he who loves slander, robbery, or murder, is an enemy 



6 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOB HIS BELIEF. 



to virtue, are moral truths as fairly reached as any result in 
geometry. It is not true that our knowledge in morals is, in its 
own nature, less certain than in other branches of science. 

Our senses also furnish good ground of belief. When a man 
sees a rainbow, he believes it has several colors, when he hears 
the songs of the mocking-bird, he believes it has exquisite musical 
powers, when he tastes honey, he believes it is sweet, when he 
feels ice, he believes it is cold, when he smells the incomparable 
flower of the magnolia, he believes it has strong odors. Nor does 
he need any other proof of these things. No process of ratioci- 
nation would add anything to his reasonableness in believing 
what his senses had already informed him of. 

Consciousness, intuition, mathematical and logical reasonings 
legitimately conducted, and our senses are all to be relied on in 
their proper spheres. He, who rejects consciousness, intuition, 
the senses, and logical reasonings, can make no progress in 
knowledge, and will simply live and die a fool. He, who refuses 
to settle an account fairly and arithmetically made out, or to 
abide by a boundary fairly and mathematically ascertained, will be 
set down for a knave. Yet in the use of all these grounds of 
belief, mistake or deception is possible. He, who slanders a 
neighbor, may say that he is not conscious of malignity towards 
him. In this case we simply infer that he does not candidly 
observe or truly report the state of his own mind. But we do not 
on that account give up all evidence of that kind. Such facts 
teach us to be watchful and truthful, but not skeptical. So a first 
truth may not be clearly stated, or from heedlessness one may 
mistake its import. Would it on that account be wise to reject 
intuition, and begin to prove that the whole is greater than a 
part? In the use of the senses, and in mathematical and logical 
reasonings, errors have been committed. Shall we therefore 
abandon them all as instruments of advancing in knowledge 1 
All sober men say, No. All these sources of evidence must be 
restrained to matters falling within their proper and respective 
provinces. Consciousness, intuition, logical reasonings, and the 
senses cannot determine how maoy acres of land are in a given 
field, or how many leagues a vessel has sailed in a day. Con- 
sciousness, intuition, mathematical and logical reasonings cannot 
prove a stone hard, an orange sweet, or a rose fragrant. One 
sense cannot testify for another, neither ought one of these classes 
of evidence to invade the province of another. Yet it is philo- 



MAN" RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



7 



sophical, reasonable, right and wise to found belief on the evidence 
obtained from all these sources. 

We have another source of information, on which to build our 
belief. Indeed, in the strict sense of the word faith, it is the only 
foundation of belief. I refer to the testimony of others. The 
necessity of reliance on testimony is based on our ignorance of 
many things, which can be known to us in no other way. The 
faculties of men are so limited, and time and space are so vast, as 
to preclude the possibility of his knowing thousands of things, 
important to be known, except by the testimony of others. 
Millions of men believe that the sea is fathomless, though they 
never cast a line into it ; that lions and elephants are found in 
Africa, though they never were in sight of its coast ; that a vast 
tract of the earth's surface is never whitened by frost, though 
they never were within the torrid zone ; that there are vast 
deposits of gold in the mines of California, though they never 
were within a thousand miles of any part of that Western Empire 
State. Their belief in these and a thousand other things has no 
basis but the testimony of others. If a man concedes the reason- 
ableness of so believing, he grants all that is essential for the 
basis of this argument ; but if he denies it, he stultifies himself 
and all mankind. It is entirely by testimony that we believe in 
the existence, productions, appearance, or institutions of countries, 
which we never visited. It is only by testimony that any man's 
lineage is known to himself or his neighbors. In the same way 
the law of descents is executed, property is held, guilt and inno- 
cence proved, life and liberty legally taken or preserved. It is 
almost exclusively by testimony that the mass of men come to 
regard certain drugs, plants, and reptiles as poisonous. Very few 
men in each age of the world subject them to any actual test. It 
is solely by the testimony of men long since dead that we have 
any knowledge of the universal empires of antiquity, and of the 
men who reared, or who destroyed them. Let all men refuse 
assent to testimony, and all business must cease, all commerce be 
checked, and all law be a dead letter. Such a course would 
make earth a Bedlam, would convert every man into a murderer 
or a suicide, would produce starvation, dissolve society, and de- 
populate the earth. Men are therefore compelled to receive 
testimony, rely upon it, and be governed by it. In so doing they 
wisely submit to the laws of their nature and of their condition. 
Who will maintain that the Chinese were philosophical in disbe- 



8 MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 

lieving, for thousands of years previous to the present century, the 
existence of the Northern and Southern Oceans? When a voyager 
in certain seas and seasons is told by the sailors that if he sleep 
on deck, it will cost him his life, is he a wise or a good man for 
believing not a word they tell him? To test the truth is to lose 
his life. To invite another to test it, is to tempt him to self-de- 
struction. Here is a case, in which one has no guide but the 
testimony of men, and those strangers perhaps. The penalty, 
fixed by the Author of nature to such recklessness as refuses the 
warning even of a stranger, is death. When the king of Siam 
was told by the German ambassador that in his country water 
in winter became so hardened by the cold that men could walk 
upon it, was he wise in forthwith determining that it was a 
falsehood? Are Virginians unphilosophical in believing on the 
testimony of several men that the feat of climbing the Natural 
Bridge has actually been accomplished ? 

It is no valid objection to the principle of reliance on testimony, 
that it may be abused. Some witnesses are ignorant, some credu- 
lous, some dishonest. That is a good reason for patience, inquiry, 
candor, and discrimination, but none at all for blindly rejecting all 
testimony. There are said to be more than a hundred kinds of 
mushroom. Of these, but one is fit for food. Yet men easily 
learn to discriminate between the noxious and the wholesome. 
So we judge of all testimony that is submitted to us, and easily 
learn to discriminate between the precious and the vile, the false 
and the true. We wisely and universally receive testimony. 
The old and the young, the learned and the unlearned, the sav- 
age, the barbarian, and the civilized man all do it. If they acted 
otherwise, they would be madmen. 

The whole force of testimony, considered by itself, depends upon 
the ability and honesty of the witness. We judge of the former 
by his general intelligence, and by his opportunities of information 
in the matter of which he speaks. We judge of the latter by his 
general character for veracity, and by his whole conduct in testify- 
ing. When the ability and honesty of witnesses are unknown, 
an inquiry on the subject is proper. Upon the testimony of com- 
petei t and credible witnesses, we take property from one man and 
gi'*e it to another, and for offences thus proven, we punish men 
with loss of liberty, and even of life itself. Nor do good men live 
in a state of alarm lest they should be ruined by this state of 
things. On the contrary, it is one of the best means of preserving 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



9 



all the dearest civil rights of men. Without it, no man is safe for 
an hour. All nations, therefore, have received testimony. All 
men have done it. All government rests mainly upon this corner- 
stone. There is no better proof of high civilization in a nation, 
than the perfection of its laws on this subject. It is the judgment 
of mankind that we are bound to admit testimony, and that we 
are highly culpable for refusing it. Take a few cases. 

Serious charges are circulated against one of my neighbors. If 
true, they ought to lead to a suspension of all intimacy between 
us. All the facts are elicited. By ample testimony, my neighbor 
is proven guilty. Yet there is no change in my conduct towards 
him. Privately and publicly he is still my boon companion. 
What is the consequence ? I declare my belief of his innocence, 
and give the highest proof of my sincerity. But men say that if 
I were not reckless of character, or had no sympathy with wrong- 
doers, I would certainly believe otherwise. If I still cling to him, 
I must bear a tremendous penalty, the forfeiture of the esteem of 
the wise and good. Or suppose the charge is fully disproven, and 
the innocence of my neighbor amply vindicated, and yet I declare 
my belief of his guilt. Is there no penalty for my rejection of testi- 
mony in his behalf? Do not all just men ascribe to malignity my 
belief of the guilt of one, whose defence has been triumphant? 
Do I not suffer severely, yet justly, for my belief in this case? 

Even in physical affairs men are, by the fixed laws of God, held 
accountable for their belief, and that under the severest penalties. 
Here is a white powder. A man is told that it is arsenic, and 
that a small quantity of it will destroy animal life. He has never 
known a death caused by this poison. The powder looks as 
harmless as so much flour or chalk. He does not know that it 
is arsenic. He does not believe that it is deadly poison. He 
refuses to receive testimony as to its destructive qualities. He 
says, it is impossible that anything, so harmless in appearance, 
should hurt any one. He gives it in a dose to some one. Death 
ensues. He is arrested, tried, convicted, and justly executed as a 
murderer. Or if he takes the dose himself, and thus gives the 
highest proof of the sincerity of his belief, an agonizing death, in- 
flicted by God himself, as the Author of the laws of nature, soon 
follows. The penalty is certain, speedy, and dreadful. He dies 
in horror and in torture, for refusing testimony. Why is this? 
Is not God good ? Yes, verily. But his goodness leads him to 
teach men that for their belief in things natural they are respon- 



10 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



sible to him under natural laws, with penalties as severe as any 
that can be inflicted on this side of the grave. 

Not one man in a thousand has ever seen human life destroyed 
by a fall from a high eminence, yet upon the testimony of others 
it is generally believed that it will be fatal. Suppose a man 
refuses to listen to the warning voice of others, and leaps from 
the top of a high precipice to the rocks below r . His unbelief in 
the testimony he has heard will not make void the law of attrac- 
tion, by which he is drawn with fearful violence to the earth's 
surface, and dashed to pieces. The Author of nature will not 
suspend the laws of the material world, but will terribly punish 
those who violate them, even if the violator of them has but heard 
of, but never proven their power and penalty. Nay, in things 
natural men suffer for the slightest disregard of the law of testi- 
mony. When a colony goes forth to a new country, abounding in 
plants of unknown qualities, it is under the general declaration 
that some are w T holesome and some noxious, and that it is folly to 
eat of anything whose nature is unknown. When the first set- 
tiers at Jamestown gathered, and boiled, and ate the leaves of the 
stromonium, they acted rashly, they despised the general law of 
testimony concerning vegetable plants, and they felt the conse- 
quences. The same truth might be taught by many other well- 
known examples. 

Besides, it is the common sentiment of mankind that a man's 
belief on moral subjects is a sign of his present character, and a 
good index to his future career. "As a man thinketh in his 
heart, so is he," is a maxim not only of revelation, but of all judi- 
cious men. Take away the fear of punishment, and present the 
occasion, to him w r ho believes that swindling or stealing are justi- 
fiable, and no man of sense is surprised that the belief rules the 
life. It is said that the great mass of convicts in our prisons 
believe themselves to have been justified in the perpetration of 
their crimes. So long as they thus believe, every orderly citizen 
knows that they are dangerous to society. A man is known to 
believe that doctrine of devils, that the end justifies the means. 
Does any wise man confide in him ? Will he not lie whenever it 
is convenient to do so? As it is his creed, so shall you find it his 
trade to deal in falsehood. No merchant will employ a young 
man, w T ho is known to believe that he may, without guilt, procure 
his pleasures at the cost of his master, and without his consent. 
A man's creed embodies his moral principles. To publish his 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



11 



creed is to make known his principles. If he, who believes 
viciously, acts correctly, it is owing to causes foreign from his real 
character ; it is despite his principles, and there is no proper ground 
of praise in what he does. No respectable code of morals admits 
of cases of fortuitous or unintended virtue. 

Moreover, it is the very office of reason to search for truth, to 
seek for light, to weigh arguments, and to determine the value of 
evidence. This whole work is voluntary. In performing it, 
every human being has the highest kind of evidence that he is a 
free agent. That evidence is his own consciousness. No man of 
sense will deny this. Nothing within the range of the human 
mind can be more free from violence, than the whole process of 
collecting, receiving, rejecting or weighing evidence. The proof 
of this is of the same nature with the proof of all our mental 
operations. All proper attempts to influence the human mind 
rest upon this basis. All other attempts to influence it are felt 
to be outrages. Persecution made Galileo submit to a humiliating 
confession. Good men have ever since felt the wickedness of the 
treatment he received. But his belief was unchanged. The echo 
of his confession that the earth did not move was hardly dead, 
till he was heard to say, " It does move," and if he had not said 
it, w T e know that such is the unchained and untamable freedom 
of all such mental operations, that after his confession, he must 
have thought just as he did before. If our belief is in any sense 
so involuntary, or so independent of the native freedom of our 
minds, that we may not be held accountable for it, what is the 
use of evidence 1 If the result cannot be varied by the evidence 
presented, then the whole process of eliciting testimony and 
listening to arguments in any cause or matter is a mockery of 
reason, truth and justice. To answer a matter before he hears 
it is not folly and shame to a man, if he cannot by candor, by 
patience, by inquiry, learn what conclusion he should reach. 
This doctrine carried out intc practice would make all judicial 
proceedings very short, and save much time. Whether it would 
be satisfactory to mankind, I will not inquire. It would also 
open the shortest road to science and learning. It would save 
these young gentlemen the toil and labor of demonstrating prob- 
lems and theorems. They might be persuaded to believe all 
things that are told them without looking at the evidence on 
which they rest. Life at the University would then be a time of 
elegant leisure tc be sure. But whether such a course would 



12 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HxS BELIEF. 



raise up a set of men, or advance solid learning, you may deter- 
mine without argument. Why do the laws provide with such 
care, and why do men labor with such zeal, that as far as possible 
judges shall be impartial, if the state of the mind has nothing to 
do in determining the weight of testimony? Why should a 
prisoner wish to be heard if evidence and argument strongly pre- 
sented will not influence the belief of a just and good man on the 
question of guilt or innocence before the court ? Why should a 
man ask for a fair trial, if there be not states of mind very unfair 
to the rights of truth and justice ? 

A court is in session. A cause involving great interests is to be 
tried. A jury appears. One of the first acts of a juror is to bind 
his soul under the sanctions of an oath that he will render a ver- 
dict according to the law and the evidence. If belief be involun- 
tary and beyond control, this oath is a mockery. But this is not 
all. The trial proceeds. The evidence is clear and carries con- 
viction to every impartial mind. The law is equally clear. The 
judge so states it. The jury retires, and brings in a verdict 
contrary to the law and the facts. What is the result? The 
public puts a mark of infamy on each of those men. Public in- 
dignation is like coals of juniper on their heads. Their reputa- 
tion is blasted. x\ll respect and esteem for them cease. This is 
sure to be the case in proportion as the community, in which they 
live, is intelligent and virtuous. Now why do all good men visit 
such conduct with so severe a penalty? Simply because the 
jurors did not stand to their oath. Even if there be no suspicion 
of bribery, even if there be no suspicion that the verdict is con- 
trary to belief, yet the penalty is inflicted, not by a bailiff or 
constable indeed, but not less terribly, because the public inflicts 
it and that without ceremony. Men judge that none but bad 
men, who did not fear an oath, could entertain a belief so utterly 
at variance with law and fact. Here is another jury of twelve 
men. One pays no attention to testimony, argument, or the law. 
His mind is already made up. Another is a mere trifler. He 
neither knows, nor cares what is right in the case. Another 
listens eagerly to the testimony on one side only. Another at- 
tends partially to one side and fully to the other. One and but 
one carefully and candidly hears the whole case and decides 
accordingly. This is the only innocent man in the panel. Even 
if the rest agree with him, in the eyes of God they are guilty; 
and so far as their conduct is known, they are guilty in the eyes 



MAN RESPONSIBLE ^OR HIS BELIEF. 



V6 



of all good men. They have evinced a criminal recklessness, a 
base want of love of truth. 

Again, if belief is involuntary in any sense, which sets aside 
the freedom of the mind, and with it accountability, there is a 
full end of the distinction between right and wrong, virtue and 
vice. Thus we should fairly conclude that Saul of Tarsus, 
"breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of 
the Lord, and making havoc of the Church, and haling men and 
women, committing them to prison," was not criminal, and ought 
never to have felt remorse for such conduct, for all the time he 
was doing these things he "verily thought he ought to do many 
things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." Saul's belief 
in this matter was firm but erroneous. It was the result of 
prejudice and bigotry. He was "exceeding mad" against the 
Christians. Yet he believed he was doing right. But as soon 
as he became a candid, truth-loving man, he was covered with 
shame and filled w 7 ith sorrow for this conduct. He never forgave 
himself for it, but w T ent to heaven crying : " I am the chief of 
sinners — I persecuted the Church of God." And if he were not 
guilty for his bloody persecutions, neither should we be in doing 
the same things, provided we could only so far pervert our minds 
and hearts as to believe that we were doing God service. 

By parity of reasoning, when in the midst of extreme perils and 
suffering and with incredible zeal, Paul preached Christ, there 
was nothing virtuous in all this, for although he did right and 
acted conscientiously, yet his belief, according to the error here 
opposed, was not a proper ground of praise. It was an involun- 
tary result reached by his mind. For the same reason, he who 
believes in no God, and worships none, he who believes in one 
God, and worships him, and he who believes in thirty thousand 
Gods, and worships them, are alike acceptable or unacceptable to 
the Creator. Such are a few of the monstrous consequences of 
this huge error. 

It has been shown that by the constitution v.,€ our natures we 
receive the testimony of men, that in so doing we act wisely and 
virtuously, and that if we violate this law of our existence, con- 
science, mankind and divine providence enforce severe penalties 
for the transgression. It is impossible for any man to attain the 
high ends of being or even to maintain that being on earth, un- 
less he will listen to the testimony of others. Let us go a step 
further. The same law of our constitution, fairly interpreted, 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



a fortiori, obliges us to receive the testimony of God. 1 If we re- 
ceive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater." The 
Bible claims to be God's testimony to man. It summons men to 
the investigation of great questions, involving at once the salva- 
tion of each man's soul, the general good of the human race, and 
the glory of our Maker. It declares that God would have our 
inquiries to be free, fair, thorough, calm and earnest. The tenor 
of Scripture on this subject is well expressed in such sentences as 
these : " Come now, let us reason together ;" " I speak as unto wise 
men, judge ye what I say ;" " Prove all things, hold fast that 
which is good ;" " In understanding be ye men f " The truth 
shall make you free;" "Be ye not as the horse and the mule, 
which have no understanding : whose mouth must be held in with 
bit and bridle ;" " If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself f 
" If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it be of God." Larger liberty of inquiry no man of sense 
could wish for. The sober legitimate use of all our mental powers 
is encouraged in every proper way. It is true that the Bible 
represses and forbids all those tempers, which are unfriendly to 
growth in knowledge. It says : " Seest thou a man wise in his 
own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him." This 
remark is as applicable to a student of nature, of law, or of medi- 
cine, as to the student of the Bible. It says : " He that is hasty of 
spirit exalteth folly ;" but the truth here asserted is of universal 
application. Rashness of mind is no more contrary to religion 
than to sound philosophy. The Bible warns us against " philos- 
ophy falsely so called." Regard to this warning gave to the world 
the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Franklin. If 
the Bible calls for profound reverence in contemplating religious 
truths, it is because those things are divine and awful in their 
own nature. Levity of mind on sacred subjects is in bad taste, 
and proves that in such matters a man wishes to be a fool. He 
who sits on the bench during a trial for life, or investigates the 
question of the truth of Christianity in the same lightness of mind, 
with which he may throw pebbles into a brook, or spend an hour 
with the friend of his childhood, is a bad man, and every one, who 
is not bad, will say so. But the modesty, the caution, the candor, 
and the reverence, called for in such an inquiry, do not impair oui 
freedom. They are the surest pledges, and the highest guaranties 
of its perfection. 

It has been shown that man is held responsible for his belief in 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



15 



temporal affairs ; why should he be irresponsible where everlasting 
things are at stake? If in any case I am bound to receive the 
testimony of an intelligent, honest man, ought I not, in every case 
to receive the testimony of God? If erroneous belief in the affairs 
of this life is mischievous and often fatal, who can show that it 
will not be equally or more so in the business of the life to come ? 
If the well-being of man on earth requires him to believe the fixed 
laws of God's natural government, may it not be even more im- 
portant that he should believe the fixed laws of his moral govern- 
ment ? A man heard that the legislature of his State had abol- 
ished capital punishment. He committed murder, and under the 
gallows said he would not have shed innocent blood, if at the time 
he had believed the penalty was death. His erroneous belief on 
this one point made him an actual murderer. May it not be as 
mischievous for a man to disbelieve God, when he says, " The soul 
that sinneth it shall die ?" If man, who is always fallible and 
often fallacious, must nevertheless in some things be believed, how 
much more must we believe the true and infallible God ? If 
man's word is ever reliable, God's is always unimpeachable. He 
commits no mistakes, and is never deceived. " God is light, and 
in him is no darkness at all ;" " His understanding is infinite ;" 
"Known unto God are all his works from the beginning ;" "Nei- 
ther is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight ; but all 
things are naked and open unto the eyes of him, with whom we 
have to do;" "He understandeth the thoughts afar off;" "He 
searcheth the heart and trieth the reins ;" He is omnipresent and 
omniscient ; he knows all causes and all effects ; he is in full pos- 
session of all the propositions, that constitute universal truth ; he 
knows what is, and was, and is to come, as well as what might 
have been, might now be, or might hereafter be on any conceiv- 
able supposition. He who denies these things must be sent to 
school to learn Natural Theology. Some of the heathen believed 
as much of God. Such a witness as God is infinitely fit and 
competent to testify. If he speak of what shall be, he has infinite 
power and wisdom to bring it to pass. Failure is out of the ques- 
tion. " To God all things are possible." Nothing is too hard for 
him. He cannot be defeated. His veracity cannot fail. False 
testimony is unspeakably abhorrent to the infinite rectitude of his 
nature. He is a God of truth. Even " if we believe him not, yet 
he abideth faithful, and cannot deny himself." Natural religion 
teaches that he is infinitely removed from insincerity and decep- 



16 



MAN" RESPONSIBLE 70R HIS BELIEF. 



tion. Despite all his grossness of character, Balaam proclaimed 
that " God is not a man that he should lie." This truth is never 
to be yielded. Sound reason unites with revelation in saying, 
" Let God be true and every man a liar." It is less foolish and 
less criminal to suspect the truth of all men, than to question the 
veracity of God. " It is impossible for God to lie." If then we 
receive the testimony of men, who often deceive and are deceived, 
is it not much wiser to receive the testimony of God? Could 
reasoning be fairer ? 

Nor is there any reasonable presumption against God's making 
known his will on the highest themes that deserve human thought. 
He instructs mankind by his works of creation and providence 
concerning things of comparatively slight importance. He teaches 
the husbandman when to sow and when to reap, he instructs the 
mariner when to furl and when to unfurl his sails, he gives men 
skill in all the useful and ornamental arts, he gives sagacity to 
statesmen and by them stability to governments. Those who 
obey the lessons he gives in nature and providence, are so far wise, 
prosperous and happy. Is it worthy of God to give us such ample 
and safe lessons concerning the body, health, riches, and the wel- 
fare of society, and say nothing of the soul, of the riches that 
endure to eternal life, and of that boundless existence, which all 
but brutish men believe to be before them ? God is benevolent and 
knows more than man. It would therefore be worthy of his 
boundless goodness to teach us. He is our Creator and Law- 
giver. It is therefore to be expected that he will make known to 
us his will. There is nothing taught us by Natural Religion, 
which makes it probable that God cannot or will not reveal to us 
more than he teaches us in his works. In other words, there is 
no a priori argument of any weight against God's revealing to up 
his whole will for our salvation. Now if God has spoken to us 
in the Bible, it is our duty to honor him by believing what he says. 
" He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God 
is true." He has done a very reasonable and proper thing. He 
has confided in his Maker's word. On the other hand, " he that 
believeth not God hath made him a liar." No inference could be 
more logical. He, that believes not man, charges him with speak- 
ing what he did not know to be truth, or with uttering what he 
knew to be false. Not to believe God is to do what in us lies to 
destroy confidence in his moral character, and to bring his name 
into contempt among his creatures. Every virtuous man feels 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



17 



exquisite pain, when his veracity is questioned. No public person, 
as a judge, or governor, will brook the insult offered by giving him 
the lie, if he has power to redress it. God is the Judge of all the 
earth. He is the Governor among the nations. The harmony 
and happiness of the Universe depends upon the esteem in which 
he is held. To make him a liar is to offer him the highest Kind 
of insult, and to sow the seeds of mischievous disaffection among 
his creatures. Confidence in God ; s veracity gone, all is gone. It. 
is therefore for the best and highest reasons known to mortals that 
man is held accountable for his belief in the testimony of God. 

If God has in the Gospel spoken to man, and man receives not 
His testimony, then by such unbelief he impeaches the Divine 
wisdom in the whole plan of salvation. To reject any measure 
proposed for our good, is to declare it unnecessary, or unsuited to 
the end proposed. In either case, it is an impeachment of the 
wisdom of the author of the plan. So, also, to reject God's word 
is to deny His ability to make good what He has promised or 
threatened. Unbelief makes the great First Cause inferior to 
second causes, and subjects the universal Lawgiver to the power 
of feeble creatures. It also impeaches the Divine kindness in 
making a revelation. If the Gospel be from heaven, its overtures 
of reconciliation are the strongest proofs of amazing love. But 
unbelief pronounces God a hard master, even in requiring the 
acceptance of proffered grace. 

If the Bible be God's word, every candid man must admit that 
he Divine testimony contained in it is full and clear on the most 
mportant subjects. It abundantly teaches that man is by nature 
and practice a sinner, that he is alienated from the life of God 
through the ignorance that is in him, that he is dead in trespasses 
and sins, that he is in love with sin and at enmity with God, that 
he is condemned by a law that is holy, just, and good, both in its 
precepts and in its penalty, that he is without strength, without 
righteousness, without hope, and without God in the world. If 
these things be so, it is kindness in God to testify them to us, 
especially as they are accompanied by offers of grace, mercy, and 
peace. Illumination, renewal of heart, pardon of sin, acceptance 
with God, strength to resist temptation, and victory over sin and 
death, are everywhere proffered in Scripture. Nor is the method 
of a sinners recovery to the favor and enjoyment of God concealed, 
or obscurely handled in the Bible. Jesus Christ, the sole and 
sufficient cause of salvation to sinners, is clearly revealed. " The 

2 



IS 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." " To him give all 
the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth 
in him shall receive remission of sins." God has spoken of him 
"by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began." 
"Yea. all the prophets from Samuel, and all that follow after, as 
many as have spoken, have foretold these days" of Messiah. In 
the New Testament, Christ is all in all, the Alpha and the Omega, 
the first and the last. The Scriptures say that he was "equal 
with God," that " he was God," that he was " the Son of God with 
power," "the only begotten of the Father," "the Lord from 
heaven." They call him Messiah, Christ, the Anointed of God, 
Jesus, or Saviour, the one Mediator between God and man, ths 
Surety of the Covenant, the Redeemer, the Prophet, Priest, and 
King of his people, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of 
the world, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the true ark 
of safety, in which all who are sheltered shall be borne to the 
eternal mountain of God, when the deluge of Divine wrath shall 
drown the ungodly world. The testimony of God concerning his 
Son, as the author of eternal redemption, is given in many forms 
and with great earnestness, is peculiarly full and clear, is con- 
firmed by the solemnities of an oath, and by many unmistaka- 
ble tokens. The Bible claims that God long bore "witness with 
signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy 
Ghost, according to his own will." Before the eyes of successive 
generations for thousands of years its professed predictions have 
been in a course of apparent fulfilment. Every generation also 
witnesses very remarkable transformations of character from vice 
to virtue, from evil to good, which are ascribed to the power of 
God's testimony concerning his Son. Under the energy of Bible 
truth, order, reason, law, civilization, benevolence, piety, patience, 
humility, public spirit, all that can bless society and honor God, 
reascend their thrones, and sway their sceptres over men If these 
things be so, I appeal to you whether there be not good reason 
and just cause for God's holding that man guilty, who rejects the 
Divine testimony? Is not man justly held accountable for his 
belief? 

Some, indeed, object to the threatenings of Scripture against 
unbelievers, and say that they do not like to be frightened out of 
their unbelief. But may there not be as good reasons in a moral 
government for threatenings as for promises, for announcing 
penalties as precepts? The pena clause of every statute is a 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



19 



threatening to wrong-doers. Ought the people of this common- 
wealth to turn felons, because the State, through the Legislature, 
has threatened to punish perjury, burglary, arson, and murder? 
Are not some men more influenced by the fear of evil than by the 
hope of good ? In times of great temptation, may not the best of 
men find their virtue in some measure fortified by fear of the 
penal consequences of evil deeds? The threatenings of Scripture 
are chiefly to be regarded as kind and timely declarations of the 
unimpassioned but inflexible purpose of God to maintain his 
rights and authority at all hazards. The Bible is a code of laws, 
and God is a moral governor. Laws without penalties are mere 
advice, and laws without known penalties are among men always 
objected to. Besides, if we understood the connection between 
causes and effects in the moral world as well as in the natural, 
we might see that all the misery of which the wicked are fore- 
warned, is the necessary and invariable fruit of sinful conduct 
here. As refusing food cannot but produce the death of the body, 
so refusing to receive Christ Jesus, the true bread that came from 
heaven, may as necessarily produce the death of the soul. The 
threatenings of Scripture, if true, are as really benevolent as its 
promises. Their place on the sacred page may heighten the 
gratitude of those who, by making peace with God, have escaped 
the wrath to come. They are also useful in awakening the zeal 
and compassion of those who preach the Gospel, when they see 
men ready to fall into the hands of a holy and just God. If the 
consequences of a wicked life were not clearly stated in a revela- 
tion, would not those who die in sin forever find fault with a 
government, that had observed a profound silence on so momen- 
tous a matter? Thus the objection appears to have no force. To 
urge it, is but to cavil. 

A modern writer assigns as a reason why man should not be 
regarded as accountable for his belief, that the opposite doctrine 
leads to persecution. If man were responsible to his fellow-man 
for his religions belief ) then, indeed, those monsters of iniquity 
who have gloated over the agonies, screams, and mangled limbs 
of their victims, might plead in their justification the doctrine 
maintained in this lecture. But the Scriptures teach that God 
alone is Lord of the conscience. "Who art thou that judgest 
another man's servant ? To his own master he standeth or fall- 
eth," i« the terrible rebuke of Scripture to all who invade the 
Divine prerogative, and undertake to punish men in matters in 



20 



MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 



which Jehovah has said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith 
the Lord." The pains and penalties due to misbelief or disbelief 
of God's testimony, and to all other offences of the same class, can 
be fitly judged of and condignly inflicted by none but God himself. 
A more daring outrage cannot be perpetrated by any creature than 
to rush into the judgment-seat of God, and deal out blows of ven- 
geance for offences, the punishment of w T hich the Almighty has 
reserved exclusively to himself. In civil and social affairs men 
may make us feel their just displeasure for our wrong belief, 
and course of action under it; but in religious affairs an attempt 
to punish us by the laws and courts of man, deserves the execra- 
tion of men, and will, I doubt not, receive the reprobation of God. 
This objection, therefore, vanishes away. 

Such is an outline of the argument designed as an introduction 
to this series of Lectures. Its object is to show that man may 
reasonably be required to believe sufficient evidence. What evi- 
dence is sufficient to oblige us to believe the Bible to be God's 
word, I shall not state. For purposes of illustration and argument, 
I have hinted at portions of it. I have also freely quoted the 
Scriptures, where it seemed important to educe their principles, or 
where they teach truths assented to by all wise and good men. 
But I have purposely avoided arguing any of the several kinds of 
evidence by which Christians suppose the Bible to be proven to be 
a revelation from God. In due time, each leading point will be 
discussed by those whom you will be pleased to hear. 



€\it Jtowtij nf e jtolafiatt: 

AND 

THE CONDITION OF MAN WITHOUT IT. 



BY BEV. A. B. VAN ZANDT, 

PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA. 



Archdeacon Paley, in his "View of the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity," says, "I deem it unnecessary to prove that mankind 
stood in need of a revelation, because I have met with no serious 
person, who thinks that even under the Christian revelation, we 
have too much light, or any degree of assurance which is super- 
fluous."* 

If this view of the subject is correct, it should only be our aim, 
to establish, from this conceded necessity, the probabilities, or the 
certainty that a revelation had actually been given to mankind. 
But if no "serious person" will assert, that man possesses more 
light than he needs, yet it is notorious, that many do deny the 
necessity for any supernatural divine communication. Even 
these, it is true, acknowledge a revelation of some sort, and 
dignify by that name, their boasted discoveries of truth, from the 
works of God interpreted by the human reason. This miscalled 
revelation they hold to be sufficient, and on that ground, reject 
any other as unnecessary, and therefore improbable. We, on the 
contrary, by demonstrating the insufficiency of their uncertain 
and erratic guide, prove the necessity of a supernatural divine 
communication, and thence, legitimately argue its probability, if 
not its certainty. The discussion of the former part of this argu- 
ment, might not fall within the plan of the distinguished Author 
whom we have quoted. Its omission, however, did not need to 
be justified by an assumption so unwarranted. 

But the argument which Paley pronounces superfluous, Chal- 
mers is disposed to reject as invalid. 

" There are some," he says, " who must be satisfied that a 
revelation is necessary ere they will proceed to inquire whether it 
is true. There seems to be no logical propriety in this. It pre- 
sumes a greater acquaintance with the principles and policy of 
the Divine administration than belongs to us." * * * " We know 
vastly too little of that mysterious Being who suffered so many 
* Paley's Evidences, p. 1. 



24 



THE NECESSITY OF A RE VELA HON. 



ages of darkness and depravity to roll on ere that Christianity 
arose upon our world, and still leaves the great majority of 
our race unvisited and unblessed by her illuminations — we con- 
fess ourselves too unequa 1 to the explanation of such phenomena 
as these, for confidently saying that because man needed a 
revelation, therefore, as a matter of necessary inference, a revela- 
tion was in all likelihood, if not in all certainty, to be looked for. 
For ourselves, we do not feel the strength of this argument, and 
can therefore have little or no value for it."* 

The argument which Dr. Chalmers thus depreciates, is con- 
fessedly, one of inference, and it may be granted, that we know 
too little of God and his government to explain every phenome- 
non, in his dealings with men, or to pronounce with confidence, 
what he would do in certain given circumstances. But if in many 
things, his ways are unsearchable, and his "judgments a great 
deep," must we thence conclude, that nothing can be argued 
a priori from his attributes — no inferences can be confidently 
drawn from what He is ? Are our notions of wisdom, goodness 
and justice, so inapplicable to Jehovah, that we cannot certainly 
expect the adaptation of means to an end ; a benevolent regard 
to the condition and wants of his creatures, and all necessary 
arrangements whereby transgressors shall be made, ultimately, to 
feel and acknowledge the equity of his government ? It is not 
necessary to the validity of arguments thus derived, that by a 
similar process of reasoning, we should be able to explain, much 
less to anticipate all the phenomena of the Divine administration. 
From those attributes which enter into our very idea of a God, 
we may confidently infer certain results, and yet be unable to 
conclude anything as to the time, or the mode of their accom- 
plishment. It may be perfectly logical, to infer from the character 
of God, and the wants of mankind, that a revelation would be 
granted, and yet for the extent of that revelation, the mode, and 
the means of its universal diffusion, we may have no other light 
than that which is derived from its own teachings. Yea, in re- 
gard to these things, and such as these, we may be left in the 
dark even there, and yet it shall militate nothing against the 
just conviction, from the necessities of the creature, and the known 
attributes of the Creator, that a revelation of some sort, and at 
some time, would result. We hold, that from what may be 
learned of God by the light of nature, together with the demon- 
* Chalmers' Evidences, book iii. ch. 1. 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION*. 



25 



strated necessity to mankind of a superior revelation, this infer- 
ence is fair, is logical, and unavoidable. Dr. Chalmers objects to 
this, our limited knowledge of the Divine government, and in 
stances some mysterious phenomena, in the actual bestowment of 
this revelation. That is to say, because we cannot precisely de- 
termine, a priori^ when and how a revelation would be given, 
therefore, we have no right to the primary inference, that it would 
be given at all. We may not conclude in favor of the general 
truth, because the same information will not warrant us, in pred- 
icating subordinate, particular truths. But it is obvious, that the 
t wo supposed conclusions, stand upon entirely different grounds. 
The one may baffle our inquiries, and be as far beyond our reach 
as the wisdom of God is superior to that of man, whilst the other 
may lie entirely within the scope of legitimate speculation, and be 
fairly deducible from the known attributes of Jehovah. 

I may justly conclude, from the character of a parent, that he 
will relieve the necessities of a child, and yet with the utmost 
knowledge of even human nature, I may be unable to decide in 
advance, how, or when, his parental affection will be manifested. 
He may have reasons of which I am ignorant, that would vindi- 
cate both his wisdom and kindness, in withholding for a time the 
necessary aid; or if he have many children, he may, in like man- 
ner, vary their allotments, and yet give no ground to question his 
parental affection, to any one who should be admitted into his 
secret councils. Now, it is not ours to inquire into those deep 
things of God, which govern his unequal dispensations to man- 
kind. And yet, without trenching at all upon this forbidden 
ground, assured of his wisdom, goodness, and justice, we may 
infer, and safely infer, that Jehovah would not leave his erring 
creatures, wholly and forever, without some surer guide, and 
higher revelation, than that which they by searching can find out. 

It may be admitted, that this argument does not carry with it 
the urgency of a demonstration, and, to some minds, it has not 
the force of many others, in the extended and cumulative evi- 
dences of Christianity. But it ought not, therefore, to be need- 
lessly given up. for it amounts at least to a presumption, and in 
some of its aspects, as we hope to show, it becomes a very strong 
probability, which may not be lightly set aside, by either the 
advocates or the rejecters of revelation. It may, indeed, be but 
one of the outworks, which surround the citadel of truth. And 
regarded with the eye of unbelief, by those who take only distant 



26 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



and cursory views, of the bulwarks of our faith ; or on the other 
hand, with the feeling's of security, common to those who are 
strongly fortified within : the true position and importance of the 
argument may be easily overlooked. But in a day like this, when 
the skeptical tendencies of our nature have the most unbounded 
scope and license, and our holy religion is menaced, by every 
variety of stratagem and assault ; it becomes us to stand upon the 
outposts, and yield no point to the pretensions or the arts of unbe- 
lief, until it has been fairly proved to be untenable. 

Now the argument which we are to examine, may be regarded 
as a reply to the pretensions of unbelief, claiming the sufficiency 
of the human reason, as a guide to truth and duty, and therefore 
rejecting revelation as unnecessary. In this point of view, as a 
weapon of defence, the argument, if it can be made out, is certainly 
unexceptionable and conclusive. But it does not stop here, nor 
should we be content with disproving the boastful claim, where- 
with reason would justify her neglect, and rejection of inspired 
truth. If the insufficiency of her teachings can be shown, that 
fact more than meets her cavil against revelation, and becomes at 
once a positive and valid evidence in its favor. We have then 
" the necessity of a revelation" and this, coupled with what rea- 
son teaches us of God and his government, constitutes one, and 
not the least among the probabilities, that a revelation has been 
granted. In this its affirmative aspect, the argument is two-fold, 
and its different parts mutually strengthen each other. There is 
first, the presumption, from the known attributes of God, that he 
would grant a revelation, to meet the pressing wants of mankind. 
This, by itself, would only warrant the expectation of some super- 
natural divine communication, and decides nothing as to the 
authority of any book claiming that distinction. But it falls also 
within the scope of the general argument, to mark the adaptations 
of Scripture, to meet the necessities of our condition, and this, 
while it adds probability to the foregone presumption, carries with 
it also, the force of a positive conclusion, that the Bible is indeed a 
revelation from God. 

As to the uses of this argument then, there can be no dispute 
about the first named. If the light of human reason is not adequate 
to meet the felt necessities of our nature, there is an end, at once, 
to the grand assumption upon which all Deistical writers proceed. 

That there is force also in the presumptive evidence derived 
from this fact in favor of a revelation. We argue— 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



1. From the strenuous efforts of the most philosophical skeptics, 
in every age, to disprove it. 

Though the language of these men is like that of the builders 
of Babel, a confusion of tongues, yet their object is the same : the 
subversion of the truth, by superseding its necessity, and erecting a 
fabric of human folly, pride and power, which shall reach unto the 
heavens. Let the necessity of a Divine revelation be granted, or 
proved, and the entire superstructure of these self-styled philoso- 
phers will crumble to the earth. Its foundation is laid in the 
assumption, that nature contains sufficient notices of God, and his 
government, and sufficiently discernible to the human intelligence, 
to lead us on to virtue and happiness. In the vaunted fulness 
and sufficiency of this universal code, they affect to find prima 
facie evidence, that any other must be the invention of designing 
men, and dishonoring to the Almighty. Some, therefore, to depre- 
ciate the disclosures of revelation, exalt their own discoveries. 
Others, compelled to concede the narrow limits of human knowl- 
edge, would persuade us to rest satisfied in our ignorance. And 
others still, find the goal of all intellectual achievements and the 
end of all inquiry, in the murky darkness of universal doubt and 
uncertainty. These, contending that darkness is better than light ; 
these, that the glimmer of a few straggling stars, is all that we 
ought to desire ; and those, that the dim twilight of reason is 
brighter than the noontide splendors of the Gospel. 

Now, whence this effort to extinguish the felt necessity of a 
revelation, and to supersede its teachings, but from the conviction, 
that this necessity acknowledged, would carry with it, also, a pre- 
sumption and probability, of a revelation actually given 1 The 
historical argument, indeed, has not been left unassailed, and not 
a few have been the efforts to impeach the Divine authority of the 
Scriptures, from their own contents. But underlying all these 
attempts has been the assumption, that a revelation was unneces- 
sary, and therefore not to be looked for. If the contrary can be 
shown, as to the premises of this proposition, the converse to 
the conclusion must also follow, our enemies themselves being 
judges. 

2. The presumption drawn from the necessities of our condition, 
acquires additional force, from the actual expectation, based upon 
these necessities, of the best cultivated minds of ancient heathen- 
ism, that a revelation would be given. 

The mind struggling after truth unrevealed, soon finds the limit 



28 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



of its attainment, and longs for superior aid. It is when the dis- 
coveries of revelation are connected with unwelcome truths, and 
its authority enforces ungrateful precepts, that a human philoso- 
phy seeks some pretext to discard it. Then, often availing her- 
self of so much of its light as shall serve to define her own vague 
impressions, she vaunts her ability, in discovering the rudiments of 
religion, and elaborating these, into an attenuated system of mo- 
rality, she arrogantly propounds it, as the perfection of wisdom. 
It was not among those who were left only to its guidance, that 
the sulTiciency of the human reason was asserted. It was not till 
called to grapple with the claims of the Bible, as an inspired book, 
that men learned to deny the necessity of a Bible. So far as there 
is any speculation upon the subject, man's need of supernatural 
guidance is felt, where it is not enjoyed, and the religions of hea- 
thenism, universally, contain the formal confession of this need. 
The only vitality which they have, and which for so long has ani- 
mated the enormous mass of their monstrous errors, is the per- 
verted truth of God in communication with man. It is because 
the mind yields to this truth, with almost instinctive readiness, 
that the mystic leaves of the Sibyl, and the vague responses of the 
raving Pythoness, obtained any credit in the world. We may 
wonder at the credulity of even a classic age, which could be de- 
cided, upon the most momentous undertakings, by the casual 
flight of a bird ; the relative position of the stars ; or the yet more 
indeterminate auguries derived from the entrails of a beast. But 
the foundation for a belief so absurd, is laid deep in the constitu- 
tion of our nature. These were but the erratic goings forth of the 
mind, after a supernatural guidance, from the impressed convic- 
tion that man needed, and might expect, the direction of Heaven. 
The sagacity of civil rulers enabled them to practise upon this 
impression, and invest their enactments with the sanction of Divine 
authority. Much more have the founders of false religions always 
claimed for their teachings a. direct revelation, and found the 
claim easily admitted. If a few gifted minds, in an age bordering 
upon " the fulness of the times," were able to discover, and to dis- 
card this empty pretence, it was not without a confession of the 
actual and apparent necessity upon which it was based ; it 7/as 
not without the expression of a hope, more prophetic than the ora- 
cles, that that necessity would, at some time, be met. In the mon- 
uments of the brightest minds of antiquity, there are found several 
passages, containing, at once, the confession of their ignorance, 



THE NECESSITY OF A 3E DELATION. 



29 



and the felt necessity of a Divine interposition. "The truth is." 
says Plato. " to determine or establish anything certain about 
these matters, in the midst of so many doubts and disputations, is 
the work of God only." Again, in his apology for Socrates, he 
puts these words into the mouth of the sage, "You may pass the 
remainder of your days in sleep, or despair of finding out a suffi- 
cient expedient for this purpose (the reformation of manners) ; if 
God, in his providence, do not send you some other instruction.' 
But the most remarkable passage, is in the well-known dialogue 
between Socrates and Alcibiades, on the duties of religious wor- 
ship. Alcibiades is going to the temple to pray, Socrates meets 
him, and dissuades him, because of his inability to manage the 
duty aright. " To me," he says, " it seems best to be quiet ; it is 
necessary to wait till 3^ou learn how you ought to behave towards 
the gods, and towards men." " And when, O Socrates ! shall that 
time be, and w T ho will instruct me," says the wondering disciple, 
"for gladly would I see this man, who he is?" "He is one," re- 
plies Socrates, " who cares for you ; but, as Homer represents 
Minerva taking away the darkness from the eyes of Diomedes, 
that he might distinguish a god from a man, so it is necessary that 
he should first take away the darkness from your mind, and then 
bring near those things, by which you shall know good and evil." 
" Let him take away," rejoins Alcibiades, " if he will, the darkness, 
or any other thing, for I am prepared to decline none of those 
things, which are commanded by him, whoever this man is, if I 
shall be made better." Such were the utterances of nature's 
longings, for that revelation which has since been given to the 
world. 

3. In favor of the presumptive argument, for which we contend, 
we remark again, that the expectation thus expressed, is justly 
founded upon the known attributes of God. 

Let it be observed here, however, that the idea of obligation on 
the part of God, to bestow the desired boon upon mankind, is 
utterly excluded by the origin and nature of that necessity under 
which they labor. The revelation, of whatever kind it was, given 
to man at his creation, though measured by his wants, was not 
granted as his right. No such claim can be based upon the mere 
relation of creatures to their Creator : much less can it be made 
out, in favor of those, who originally endowed, have " become vain 
in their imaginations," and whose "foolish hearts" are thereby 
" darkened." 



30 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



Nevertheless, there may be a well-founded expectation of a de- 
sired good, where there is no valid claim to its enjoyment. Such 
an expectation will be more general or defined, according to the 
extent of our knowledge. If derived from obscure analogies it is 
indefinite and vague, and therefore only partially fulfilled by the 
event, yet the event which disappoints it in part, may at the same 
time justify the reasoning upon which it was built. I may know 
enough of God and his government to infer the probability of a 
revelation, and yet the very analogies from which I reason, will 
themselves teach me, that I do not know enough to anticipate be- 
forehand, the extent or mode of that revelation. If, then, passing 
beyond the only conclusion which my information will warrant, 1 
go about to form a definite conception of my own, as to the how, 
or the when, of this supposed revelation, the event may entirely 
disappoint all such expectations, and yet by fulfilling, justify, the 
primary inference. 

It is by these considerations, that we vindicate our argument 
from the objection, that God has not given to all men a revelation, 
though all men are under a like necessity. If a revelation is to be 
inferred from the condition of men, it may be said, that a universal 
revelation ought to be inferred, since all men are in this respect in 
the same condition. But as all have not been blessed with the 
light of the truth, the fact is, therefore, in opposition to the infer- 
ence. Now, if the argument necessarily implied, that man's neces- 
sities constituted a claim upon his Maker; or if it professed to 
proceed upon so clear a knowledge of Jehovah's purpose, as to de- 
termine beforehand, the extent and mode of any Divine commu- 
nication, this objection would be fatal. But as man has no claim 
of right, and can expect the desired boon only as the bestowment 
of grace, he cannot know beforehand, that God will make no dis- 
tinctions in its bestowment. He cannot anticipate the degree, or 
any one circumstance in the manner of imparting the supposed 
revelation. Such detailed and definite expectations are not war- 
ranted by his information. Their being disappointed by the event, 
therefore, can in no way impair the force of an inference, justly 
derived from ascertained premises. To say that there are consid- 
erations which warrant the expectation of a Divine revelation, is 
one thing : but to say furthermore, that such a revelation if given, 
will be universal, is a very different assertion, and one which would 
require a very different set of analogies to prove it. 

Assuming then, the necessity of our condition, we argue, that 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



33 



the expectation of a Divine revelation is justly founded upon what 
may be known of God and his government. 

In the exercise of those attributes which are deemed essential to 
every reasonable conception of God, he has created man with a 
physical, intellectual, and moral nature. With varied dispensa- 
tions towards races, and ages, and individuals, we yet find that he 
has made ample provision for man's physical and intellectual 
wants. The earth, though bearing the marks of changes, un- 
friendly to its products and its clime, and in some of its wide- 
spread regions yielding a precarious, and in some a scanty, and 
in all a seemingly reluctant support to her teeming populations, is 
yet, by evident design, adapted to man's physical constitution. 
The very difficulties of its climate and soil, requiting skill and 
labor to overcome them, as they stimulate to exertion, furnish 
also " verge and scope" for the exercise of his intelligence. If 
gifted with faculties seeking a wider range than the daily supply 
of his necessary wants, he is surrounded also with objects appeal- 
ing to his curiosity and inviting his research: he is in the midst 
of a world of wonders which ages would be too short to explore, 
and himself the greatest wonder of them all. If, with still more 
adventurous thought, he would rise from the actual to the prob- 
able, and from a real to an imagined existence, his discursive 
fancy may weave into unnumbered combinations the elements of 
being, or a bold speculation may busy itself in conjecturing or 
discovering the reasons of things. By the wise arrangements of 
the Creator, there is then abundant employ and a rich reward to 
the utmost stretch of his intellectual powers. But man has no 
less certainly a moral, than he has a physical and intellectual 
nature. There is that within him which recognizes the distinc- 
tion of right and wrong, and gives no unequivocal notice of his 
accountability. Yea, he has a religious nature; a sense of the 
Divine existence, if you will, which, not until he has reasoned 
himself into metaphysical madness, or besotted his soul by long 
habits of sensuality, will permit him to say in his heart " there is 
no God." or leave him wholly insensible to the obligation of his 
worship. 

Might we not then expect, from the analogy of his dealings in 
other things, that God would make provision also for this part of 
man's nature? And might we not expect it the more, by as 
much as this is the highest and most distinguishing element of 
his complex being ? Is it conceivable, that whilst caring for all 



32 



THE NECESSITY OF A. REVELATION". 



his subordinate wants, as lie manifestly has, God should leave 
him unprovided in this the most essential want of his nature: 
that he should leave him with the consciousness of obligation and 
accountability, and yet uninstructed in the relation which he 
sustains to his Maker, and the paramount duties groAving out of 
that relation ? 

It is a monstrous supposition, which sober Deism itself would 
reject ; with indignant scorn. And yet on the assumption that man 
needs a revelation, by just so much as this supposition is at war 
with right reason, and the analogies of the divine government, by 
so much the opposite presumption gathers strength and force — 
that a revelation would be granted. The Deist would, of course, 
contend that God had made ample provision for man's moral 
and religious nature without a revelation, But we are arguing 
now upon the assumption that he has not. and we say, that that 
assumption being granted, or the fact bemg proved, even Deism 
itself must admit that a revelation is probable. 

Now thus much, we have deemed it necessary to say, .owards 
exhibiting in advance, the nature and strength of that presump- 
tive argument, which from the necessities of our condicioiT, infers 
a revelation. Standing thus by itself, the argument, of course, 
claims not to have the urgency of a demonstration. But estab- 
lishing a probability, that probability may serve as a link in the 
chain of induction, which binds us down to a positive and un- 
avoidable conclusion. We have intimated already, that the in- 
ference of a revelation as probable from its alleged necessity, is 
but a part of the general argument in its affirmative aspect. The 
expectation of a revelation brings us to the Book itself, and we 
come to the investigation of its claims, not as if it were an un- 
looked-for phenomenon, but as to an event, which from its ante- 
cedent piobability, has already an established title to our credence; 
a title which can only be set aside by being actually disproved. 
There is here a presumptive claim which casts the onus jjrohandi 
upon the opposite party. Arrived at this presumption, we hold 
then that the argument has made progress, and the evidence of 
revelation in any of its departments gains force and urgency from 
this foregone probability. 

But the probability thus derived especially leads us — and in the 
attitude of expectants, an attitude perfectly compatible with ex- 
emption from prejudice— to examine the claims of any supposed 
revelation, with particular reference to those necessities on account 



/ 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 33 

of which it was given. And if we find in the Bible an adaptation 
to the felt wants of our spiritual nature, we are brought to the 
direct conclusion, upon the principles of Deism itself, that the 
Bible is a revelation from God. For just as we argue from the 
adaptations of external nature, a designing cause, we may also 
argue from the adaptations of Scripture its supernatural and 
Divine origin. As conclusively as in the one case, these adapta- 
tions prove the being of a God; those, in the other case, transcend- 
ing as they do, the discoveries of the human intelligence, prove 
the Bible to be from Him. Thus much, Dr. Chalmers fully con- 
cedes, and in conceding it, shows that his previous exceptions can 
only hold against those defective representations of the argument, 
which make of the presumption a certainty, or suppose the reason- 
ing to stop short at the inference, and passing over the interme- 
diate steps, to leap at once from the bare probability of a revela- 
tion, to the conclusion that the Bible is that revelation. It is only 
with reference to such a view that we can understand him as 
saying that " the argument is altogether premature if we base it 
upon the necessity alone." We may certainly base upon the 
necessity the strong presumption which we have considered, and 
that presumption leading us to examine and find the perfect 
adaptations of Scripture to our felt necessities, we may thus 
" arrive at the truth of the gospel through the medium of its 
necessity," and by " a pathway" too, sufficiently " solid" for even 
the Herculean tread of a Chalmers. " The fitness of the Bible," he 
says, " or of the truths which are in it, to the necessities of the 
human spirit, may as clearly evince the hand of a designer in the 
construction of this volume, as the fitness of the world, or of the 
things which are in it, evinces the same hand in the construction 
of external nature. They are both cases of adaptation, and the 
one is just as good an argument for a revealed as the other is for 
a natural theology." 

If we have occupied considerable space in exhibiting the true 
ground and scope of our argument, it is not more than seemed to 
be required by the treatment which it has received. If we have 
succeeded in establishing its logical propriety and force, and 
marking out the track by which it advances to a just and definite 
conclusion, we. shall follow, with the greater interest and satisfac- 
tion, the several steps of its progress. 

The main question is now before us, and we shall endeavor to 
substantiate what we have hitherto assumed. 

3 



34 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION . 

Ill exhibiting the proofs of this necessity, we shall have nc 
occasion to depreciate the powers of the human reason ; to over- 
look its achievements in the varied departments of knowledge, or 
to deprecate its most unfettered exercise. There is no such 
antagonism between reason and revelation, as that the claims of 
the one, can only be made good at the expense of the other. It i3 
to the reason that Christianity addresses itself, as a system claim- 
ing to be Divine. It is the province of reason to judge of its cre- 
dentials. And it is always the faith of a rational conviction which 
our religion demands. Reason has, then, an important office to 
perform, not only in natural theology, but also in supernatural. 
It is her province, by deductions from the works and the ways of 
God, to lead the inquirer on to the vestibule of truth. It is hers to 
enter with him into the temple itself, and pointing out the glories 
and beauties of the inner sanctuary, it is hers, together with her 
disciple, to bow in adoring reverence at its shrine. 

The question is not, whether reason can teach us anything 
concerning God and duty, but whether she can, unaided, teach us 
everything which it is necessary for us to know; — not whether 
she has any light, but whether she has light enough, to. dispel the 
darkness which envelopes our condition and our destiny. Her in- 
structions may be authentic and truthful, but at the same time 
they may be indefinite and incomplete. Her light may be light 
from heaven, and yet, like the lightning's fitful flash, or the pale 
glimmer of the stars, it may only reveal our danger, without 
revealing also the way of escape. 

Nor is it our purpose, in this discussion, to portray the horrors 
of heathenism, ancient or modern, and presenting the dark picture 
of its degrading rites, disgusting manners, and cruel maxims, to 
bid you look upon this as the utmost effort of the unaided reason. 
Your whole moral nature, revolted at the appalling spectacle, 
would recoil from the assertion, that this was the last and highest 
result of reason's struggle after truth. You would say, and justly 
say, that it is not amid barbarous and savage tribes we are to find 
the measure of our intellectual and moral attainments, any more 
than we would look for the perfection of our physical nature 
among the dwarfed, deformed, and crippled inmates of a lazaretto. 
And yet the horrors of heathenism have their lesson upon thic 
subject ; a lesson which we cannot ignore or escape. They reveal 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



35 



to us, at least, the depths of that abyss into which erring humanity- 
may plunge, if left to its own guidance. Moreover, account for 
this monstrous departure from the principles of even natural 
theology as you may, the tremendous fact is still before you, the 
ip cur testable evidence, that reason is not universally an adequate 
^uide. If it could be proved that, in any case, her discoveries 
were commensurate with our wants, it must still be admitted that 
to millions of the race, and for countless ages together, she has 
not served as a guide to even the rudiments of truth ; she has 
not saved them from the utmost degradation of which our nature 
is capable. 

But turning from savage to civilized society : from the barbarous 
and semi-barbarous to the most enlightened and polished nations 
and ages of antiquity, the result of our inquiry will be scarcely more 
flattering to the pretensions of reason as a sole guide in religion. 
There is room to believe, and ground for the assertion, that the 
most eminent sages and philosophers were more indebted for any 
just views of the being and attributes of God, and the relations 
and obligations of man, to immemorial tradition, the lingering 
light of the original, or the scattered rays of the Mosaic revelation, 
than to their own independent discoveries. And yet, with all this 
extraneous aid, how meagre and imperfect their systems at best ; 
how inoperative in restraining and removing the idolatry and 
superstition of the masses. Upon the primary questions of natural 
theology, their doctrines were obscure, and conjectural, and con- 
tradictory. Upon all that pertains to the worship of God, they 
were silent, from a confessed incompetence to speak, or acquiescent 
in absurdity, because ignorant of a more excellent way. Upon 
questions vital to man's happiness, both here and hereafter, the 
great problems of his origin and his destiny, they were content with 
the wildest dreams of poetry, or despairing of a satisfactory solution, 
they awaited in dread uncertainty the disclosures of hereafter. 

The question of reason's competnece might fairly and safely be 
rested upon her actual achievements, or more properly speaking, 
upon her obvious failures, in the ages preceding the advent of the 
Son of God. The philosophers of the Academy, the Porch, and 
the Grove, must be admitted, on all hands, as the competent wit- 
nesses and examples of her power. They lived in an age of learn- 
ing and of leisure ; they walked and talked amid the noblest 
creations of art ; and their lives, devoted to philosophy, were spent 
beneath the shadow of Parnassus, and beside the cool flowing 



36 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



streams of Helicon. And yet, what is their concur ent testimony, 
direct and indirect, but the unequivocal and unanswerable evi- 
dence, that " the world by wisdom knew not God." 

But it may be alleged, that in this, as in other respects, the 
world has grown wiser, as it has grown older ; that science has 
made progress in these latter days, and penetrating farther into 
the arcana of nature, reason has been able to strike out new 
light and discover new truths concerning God and his govern- 
ment. Not, therefore, to the sages of antiquity, but to modern 
philosophy, the appeal should be made. Be it so ; we have 
nothing to object against this transfer of the inquiry, if so the 
inquiry shall be properly conducted. But we must put in a caveat 
here, lest the light of revelation should be confounded with the 
deductions of reason. 

It is a notorious and instructive fact that the most full and con- 
clusive systems of natural theology, extant in the world, have 
been constructed by Christian writers. And the reason is obvious. 
There is an immense difference between gathering up and mar- 
shalling the proofs, which go to establish an ascertained conclu- 
sion, and marching up by a long line of existent but scattered evi- 
dence to the same conclusion, as yet undiscovered. It is just the dif- 
ference between a demonstration and a discovery — the one may be 
comparatively easy, to those with whom the other is simply impos- 
sible. To say then, that in the unaided exercise of reason, human 
philosophy, in the nineteenth century, is capable of constructing a 
system of doctrine and morals which shall be exempt, by its supe- 
rior elevation and purity, from many of the objections which lie 
against the various systems of antiquity, is to assert what cannot 
be proved by the simple production of such a system. Philosophy 
has now for nineteen centuries lived and breathed, under the light 
of revelation. And for her now, to claim as discoveries of her own, 
truths long ago announced, and found that claim upon her ability 
to demonstrate what has been known for ages and demonstrated 
too, would only be equalled in absurdity, by one who in this day, 
having sailed from Europe to America, should claim, on the ground 
of that exploit, to have discovered a continent. The question is 
not, what can be proved by reasoning to be true ; but what in its 
unaided exercise the reason can discover. 

What, then, has modern philosophy whereof to boast, over the 
sages of antiquity, beyond that, which she owes to the light of 
revelation? We are not advised of any new principle in morals 



THE NECESSITY OF 1 REVELATION. 



37 



evolved by the progress of physical science. If there has been a 
more complete analysis and classification of our mental exercises, 
neither has this changed the quality of actions, or added a single 
precept to the code of human obligations. More just and exalted 
conceptions of God and his government may now enter into the 
speculations of philosophy. But we claim it for revelation to have 
originated those conceptions, and the claim can only be disproved 
by authenticated examples of the like, which cannot be traced 
directly or indirectly to the influence of its teachings. 

There are many truths to which the mind readily assents as 
soon as they are proposed, and for the establishing of which it can 
easily gather up abundant and conclusive evidence, but which yet 
lie upon the very borders, if not actually beyond the limit of its 
discovery. 

Like Nebuchadnezzar's forgotten dream, there may be some lin- 
gering and indefinite recollections, not enough to recall the em- 
bodiment or the outline of the departed image, though assisted by- 
all the arts of the magicians and the wise men of the world ; and 
yet enough to recognize it instantly when it is made to stand out 
in all its proportions of gold and silver and brass and iron, by the 
revelation of the Prophet. So there may be lingering lines and 
traces of the Divine character, written upon the heart, and writ- 
ten upon the external creation, which by the light of nature alone, 
men cannot read for themselves, but which illumined by the light 
of revelation become at once the legible and impressive records of 
God and his government. And under the clear shining of a sun, 
in the heavens, the philosophy of our day may decipher these 
records, and expatiate through all the fields of natural theology, 
and attain to some exalted conceptions of God and duty, the 
while discarding, but not the less indebted to that supernatural 
light, by which all her inquiries have been directed to a just con- 
clusion. But the question of her capacity, is not to be settled by 
ascertaining how much of truth she can demonstrate, but how 
much she can discover. 

Now, to settle this question, the only legitimate appeal is to ex- 
perience. We must judge of what man can do, by what he has 
actually done ; and accurately to judge, it must be by what he 
has done under circumstances which preclude the suspicion of aid 
derived from that revelation which he discards. Under any 
known circumstances, indeed, his efforts must be regarded with 
the unavoidable impression of a lingering tradition, more or les3 



3b 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION". 



defined, which had its origin in a higher source than his own in- 
telligence. But subsequent to the advent of the Son of God, the 
dim remains of tradition have given place to the effulgence of 
Gospel truth. And, under the blaze of this truth, the whole field 
of inquiry has been so illumined, that even the skepticism which 
has most wilfully shut its eyes, and, mole-like, has burrowed the 
deepest, has still found its caverns, to some extent, lighted up by 
its rays. Reason cannot now, if she would, construct a system 
of natural theology, which shall be the product alone of her own 
deductions. Truly to find out her power, we must go back to the 
theologies of antiquity, or we must take our estimate from the 
abominations of that heathenism which has as yet been unvisited 
by the light of revelation. 

But to vindicate our argument to the fullest extent, and estab- 
lish the inadequacy of reason, it is not needful to press this advan- 
tage, or insist upon the inquiry taking either of these directions. 
Natural theology, in its highest development, is yet inadequate to 
meet the obvious and felt wants of humanity. 

1. And it is so, first, because its teachings are so diverse, and 
therefore uncertain, concerning even the first principles of religion. 
Those of its disciples who have carried their speculations the far- 
thest, and whose circumstances have been the most favorable for 
the discovery of truth, are by no means agreed in their doctrines, 
or in the processes by which the truth is to be reached. To a 
great extent, the history of modern philosophy has been the his- 
tory of motion without progress ; conflicts and victories without 
conquests ; deductions and dogmas without discoveries ; the rise, 
prevalence, and decadence of systems, without satisfaction, cer- 
tainty, or safety to the inquirer. From the ample and diversified 
page of nature without, and the irregular actings and agitations 
of the spirit within, as the data of their investigations, each one 
has had his interpretation, his theory, his dream, until, in the end- 
less jargon of the schools, the mind bewildered, has accepted 
words for wisdom, sound for sense, and the latest as the greatest 
and the best exposition of truth. 

(1.) Take, for example, the teachings of philosophy concerning 
the being and attributes of God, and from the polytheism of 
Greece, to the pantheism of Germany, where did eve: her deduc- 
tions meet and centre in a Divinity, 

" A God full orbed. 
In the whole round of rays complete," 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



39 



worthy the worship of an ingenuous mind, and meeting all its 
aspirations and desires ? The light of nature, to those who have 
followed it only, has not always brought the conviction of that 
cardinal truth, the existence of a God. Thus, one discjple of 
reason would solve his doubts by a silly experiment, and he 
staked his faith in this article upon the issue of throwing a 
stone at a tree, whether he should hit it or not. And another, a 
poet, not unknown to fame, amid the inspirations of Alpine 
scenery, deliberately writes himself an atheist. But, convinced 
that God is, there remains still the question, "What is God?" 
And philosophy, not in all her disciples exhibiting the modesty of 
a Thales, has yet exhibitea her incompetence to reply, in every 
attempted answer to that question. Surveying the vast, compli- 
cated, and yet admirably adjusted and harmonious mechanism of 
the universe, she returns from her research to tell us of a mechani- 
cal God : the artificer of worlds and systems ; known to his crea- 
tures only by the evidence of skill and contrivance, in every 
organization of matter. Turning, then, to the world within — the 
chaos of human emotions and passions — and from the heights of 
abstract contemplation, looking down upon the actings and agita- 
tions of the heart, she deifies the less degrading elements of char- 
acter, and presents us with the God of sentimentality ; the Divinity 
of the imagination ; an apotheosis of some hero of romance. 
Again, constrained by unaccountable events, and phenomena that 
fall not within the operation of ascertained laws, to acknowledge 
some constant connection between God and his works, and yet 
shrinking from the implied personal supervision and control of a 
universal Governor ; by the potent alembic of her sophistries, she 
forthwith transmutes both the God of sentimentality and the 
Creator of the universe into the universe itself; "a power without 
personality, an essence without feeling ;" the dream-God of modern 
pantheism. 

" Man must have a God." But if left to himself, by searching 
to find Him out, he will form his own divinity, and he will make 
it a god after his own image. Or, if made sensible of the absurd- 
ity of deifying his own tastes and desires, and disgusted with a 
Divinity which bears so strong a likeness to himself, he seeks to 
rise to a more exalted conception of God ; in the mazes of specu- 
lation he elaborates an ethereal essence, too impalpable and un- 
real to be the object of human love or aversion. Embodying, 
then, a vague, unintelligible idea, in the amplitude of high-sound- 



40 



THE NECESSITY OF A. REVELATION. 



ing words and phrases — as an idle fancy gives colossal shape and 
limbs to the mist-cloud of a summer morning, he virtually vacates 
the throne of the Eternal, enthroning there the phantom of his 
brain. 

Listen for a moment to the oracular utterances of a High 
Priest of modern philosophy. " Thy life, as alone the finite mind 
can conceive it, is self-forming, self-representing will, which clothed 
to the eye of the mortal with multitudinous sensuous forms, flows 
through me and the whole immeasurable universe — here stream- 
ing as self-creating matter through my veins and muscles — there 
pouring its abundance into the tree, the flower, the grass."* 

We may cease to smile at the narrow and distorted conceptions 
of God — the deities of an earlier and darker age, when in our own 
there emanates from the schools of philosophy, such sublimated 
nonsense as this. 

(2.) In the department of morals, the teachings of philosophy 
are no less diversified and inadequate. If it were true, as has 
been asserted, that every cardinal precept of the Bible, may be 
found somewhere in the writings of some one or other of unin- 
spired men ; yet they would also be found scattered too widely, 
to be gathered into a system, modified and neutralized by con- 
tradictory dotrines ; and founded upon such different and deba- 
table grounds of obligation, as materially to weaken, if not wholly 
to destroy their weight and authority. The mind bewildered in 
its notions of God, can never have clear and settled conceptions 
of duty. 

(3.) So also concerning futurity, reason can give us nothing but 
diversified conjectures. Granted, that her deductions are so direct 
and conclusive, as to leave the conviction of an existence beyond 
the grave, yet it is at best, a conviction, which may be character- 
ized as an apprehension rather than a hope. Until some traveller 
returns from the unseen regions of the dead, or a revelation from 
God lifts the veil which intercepts our viewr. imagination may 
picture its scenes in the dreams of poetry, and conscience may 
anticipate its reversions with alarm ; but reason can never pro- 
nounce with certainty or satisfaction. 

2. But even though we should grant that, to a few gifted minds, 
the toil of patient and profound investigation might be rewarded 
by the discovery of all necessary truth ; yet their deductions, 
lying far beyond the reach of the mass of mankind, and clothed 
* Fichte. Seo McCosh, on " Method of Divine Government." 



THE NECESSITY OF A EEVELATION. 



41 



with no manifest authority from heaven, must be wholly inopera- 
tive as restraints, and entirely inadequate as guides. 

The utmost that can be claimed for natural religion, implies in 
its disciples, an extent of intelligence, reflection and reasoning, to 
which the great mass of mankind never attain. And though 
the maxims of the few may be delivered to the many, yet re- 
garded only as the opinions of men, they have always failed to 
preserve public morals and order. 

The reign of terror, in France, was the jubilee of unbelief. 
Revelation discarded, and Christianity proscribed, natural religion 
had an open field, in which to work out its results, and make full 
proof of its power. In an age of learning and refinement ; an 
age of distinguished progress in science and the arts, at a period 
bordering upon the nineteenth century ; and in the fairest capital 
of Europe, with philosophers for its priests, the temples of God 
for its altars, and unlimited power and wealth for its support ; 
what was the result ? The story has been often told, and in the 
annals of the world's history it will stand a record to all coming 
time, of human depravity unrestrained, misery unmitigated, and 
crimes without a parallel. Atheism, practical and avowed, ob- 
literated all reverence for the being and authority of God ; lust 
and cruelty triumphed over prostrate order and virtue ; a can- 
nibal fury trampled upon the instincts of nature ; and with 
hands dripping gore, with banners inscribed with names of blas- 
phemy, and with bacchanal songs upon their lips, a phrenzied 
people march to the very altars of religion, to crown and con- 
summate their extravagance of impiety, by enthroning a harlot 
as the goddess of reason ! 

That such excesses are at variance with the principles of 
natural religion, and the dictates of right reason, will not be 
denied. We appeal to them, not as the examples of what reason 
would teach, but as the examples of depravity triumphing over 
reason, when, discarding revelation, she exalts herself as the 
guardian and guide of public morals. We appeal to them as the 
instances, in which the fountain of iniquity in the human heart 
has poured out the tide of its bitter waters, sweeping away the 
frail barriers which human philosophy had reared; overflowing 
its ancient channels, and ploughing up the very foundations of 
society. Take away the hold which revelation has upon the 
conscience, and the elaborate theories, profound maxims, and 
admired precepts which a philosopher may excogitate in his 



42 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



study, will fall as powerless upon the ear of an excited populace, 
as falls the snow-flake upon the billows of the storm-ridden ocean. 
Even Robespierre confessed, that to save France from lapsing 
back into barbarism, it was necessary to find a God, or to invent 
one. And when the far-reaching sagacity of Napoleon restored 
the former religion, in spite of the scorn and ridicule of the philoso- 
phers, it was well said by one of his counsellors, " The natural 
religion to which one may rise by the effects of a cultivated rea- 
son, is merely abstract and intellectual, and unfit for any people. 
It is revealed religion which points out all the truths that are use- 
ful to men, who have neither time nor means for laborious dis- 
quisition." 

3. But we have now arrived at a point in the argument, from 
whence we may take higher ground. We have alluded to the 
confessed inadequacy of the unaided reason, as discovered in the 
varied religions of heathenism. We have considered her achieve- 
ments, when receiving important, but unacknowledged aid, from 
the revelation which she discards ; and we have found that, even 
then, her discoveries and her influence have not been equal to her 
pretensions. Let us now estimate her teachings under the most 
favorable circumstances, when the whole field of investigation is 
lighted up by revelation, and when her inquiries are all directed 
towards ascertained conclusions. 

The question is not now what reason can discover, but what 
she can prove to be true. So far as the character and govern- 
ment of God are manifested in his works, nature, rightly interro- 
gated, always gives truthful answers. The incompetency of the 
unaided reason, as it has thus far appeared, is to be ascribed 
mainly to the misdirection of her inquiries, and the lameness of 
her deductions. The accumulated experience of the past, there- 
fore, proves the necessity of a revelation, by as much as it proves 
that reason never would have discovered even those truths which 
the volume of nature contains. With that volume before him, 
written all over with the handwriting of God, man has not been 
able to read the truth, or if he has, by the potency of an evil 
heart, he has also " changed the truth of God into a lie." 

But let nature have an interpreter, and yet we hold, that when 
interrogated in every part by an instructed reason, her responses 
will be too few to satisfy our wants — wants increasing with our 
knowledge. It was the wise and profound saying of D'Alembert, 
that " man has too little sagacity to resolve an infinity of ques- 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



43 



tions, which he has yet sagacity enough to make." Now this 
appears to be precisely the case with Natural Theology. There 
is a limit to her instructions, beyond which she cannot carry us ; 
and yet beyond that limit lie unresolved the most momentous 
questions of our condition and destiny. Natural Theology brings 
us to these questions, and leaves us there. She states the condi- 
tions of the problem, but gives us no solution. She sets before us 
the difficulty and the danger, but she points to no way of escape, 
except as her silence, when further interrogated, intimates the 
necessity, and inspires the hope of another and safer guide. 

Let us look at a few facts, and the conclusions to which thsy 
lead. 

There is in man a certain law, faculty, or sentiment (call it by 
what name you please) in obedience to which he universally 
recognizes the distinction of right and wrong. This is one 
of the most obvious facts in human nature. It may have been 
obscured, at times, by the speculations of philosophy, but, through- 
out the whole circle of metaphysics, the fact has still been acknowl- 
edged, whilst the contention has been about questions of nomen- 
clature, or theories of explanation. As little has philosophy invaded 
the generally conceded and felt supremacy of conscience. "Upon 
whatever," says Dr. Adam Smith, " we suppose that our moral 
faculties are founded, whether upon a certain modification of rea- 
son, upon an original instinct called a moral sense, or on some 
other principle of our nature, it cannot be doubted that they are 
given us for the direction of our conduct in this life." " The 
rules, therefore, which they prescribe, are to be regarded as the 
command and laws of the Deity, promulgated by those vice- 
gerents which he has set up within us."* Cicero, in his cele- 
brated passage, represents the conscience, in like manner, as a 
universal law, clothed with Divine sanctions. " Nor does it speak 
one language at Rome and another at Athens, varying from 
place to place, or from time to time, but addresses itself to all 
nations, and to all ages, deriving its authority from the common 
Sovereign of the universe, and carrying home its sanctions to 
every breast by the inevitable punishment which it inflicts on 
transgressors." " Had it strength," says Butler, " as it has right, 
had it power, as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely 
govern the world." Its right to the throne of the human heart 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. iii. chap. v. 



44 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



is acknowledged, even when that throne has been usurped by 
some dominant inclination or passion. 

11 Cast your eyes," says Rousseau, " over all the nations of the 
world, and all the histories of nations. Amid so many inhuman 
and absurd superstitions — amid that prodigious diversity of man- 
ners and characters, you will find everywhere the same principles 
and distinctions of moral good and evil. The paganism of the 
ancient world produced, indeed, abominable gods, who on earth 
would have been shunned or punished as monsters, and who 
offered, as a picture of supreme happiness, only crimes to commit, 
and passions to satiate. But Vice, armed with this sacred author- 
ity, descended in vain from the eternal abode : she found, in the 
heart of man, a moral instinct to repel her. The continence of 
Xenocrates was admired by those who celebrated the debaucheries 
of Jupiter, — the chaste Lucretia adored the unchaste Venus, — the 
most intrepid Roman sacrificed to Fear."* 

Now these quotations are given, not so much to establish, as to 
express a truth, to which the consciousness of every man responds, 
that there is within his breast a power, principle, or sentiment, 
which recognizes moral distinctions, and delivers its decisions 
with the authority of a judge, and with the high sanctions of 
present and prospective pain or pleasure. 

But from this truth, we easily rise to another. The monitions 
of conscience imply a rule of duty, and a ground of obligation. 
The acknowledged supremacy of conscience, even where its dic- 
tates are disobeyed, is the confession that this obligation is para- 
mount, and this law is heaven-derived. The sentences pro- 
nounced by this judge w T ithin the breast, are felt to be the echoes 
from a higher tribunal. And the sanctions with which they are 
clothed, proclaiming the Divine regard for virtue, and aversion 
to sin, proclaim also the righteousness of God, and a moral 
government administered by Him, connected with rewards and 
penalties. If, from the constitution of external nature, we infer 
the wisdom and power of God, so, from the original moral consti- 
tution of man, we may also infer other and higher attributes. 
And if upon that constitution he has impressed the law of right- 
eousness, we may be sure "it must have been transcribed from the 
prior tablet of his own nature." 

But, it may be objected, the decisions of conscience are too 
diversified and contradictory to warrant this inference. The 
* Quoted by Di Brown, Lect 15. 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



45 



apparent want of uniformity in our moral judgments will not be 
denied ; an examination of the facts, however, would show that 
this diversity is more apparent than real. The conscience, like a 
court of law, decides upon an action according to the evidence 
laid before it, and if it ever approves the wrong, or disapproves 
the right, it is because the understanding has presented a false 
issue to its decision, being itself either misinformed or misled. 

But if we look a little more closely into the operations of con- 
science, we shall find that its sanctions do not terminate with the 
present pleasure or pain, consequent upon its approval or dis- 
approval. For the time being, its voice may be so far overborne 
by the turbulence of passion, as hardly to awaken the sensibili- 
ties. But when its sentence falls upon the heart, like the voice 
of doom, and its reproaches, like a whip of scorpions, yet its inflic- 
tions always imply something more than any measure or degree 
of present remorse. Memory has recorded the deed of guilt, and 
whenever the record is perused, conscience repeats its sentence, 
and re-enacts its punishment. Nor is this all. In every decision 
of this judge upon any particular act, whether it be for the first, 
or for the fiftieth time, the pleasure of its approval is always 
linked to the inspiration of hope, and the pain of its condemnation 
is enhanced by the apprehensions of fear. Thus conscience her- 
self proclaims, that her sentence and her sanctions are not ulti- 
mate, but the prognostics and precursors of higher rewards, or 
heavier vengeance, consequent upon the final sentence of the 
infinite Judge. 

Now, it is in full view of these ascertained truths ; — that God is 
a righteous moral governor, and will maintain the distinction of 
right and wrong, in the administration of his government, by 
rewarding the one and punishing the other ; that conscience, yet 
further, pronounces upon the character of every man, and its ver- 
dict, in regard to the individual, is always, Guilty ! This, her 
sentence, is recorded in every breast, and for the proofs of the 
fact, we have but to refer to every man's consciousness. Such, 
then, is our condition, according to the teachings of natural 
theology ; — there is a righteous God, administering a govern- 
ment of retributive justice, and by the testimony of our own 
hearts, we a>e guilty in his sight: and, yet more; — this con- 
sciousness of guilt brings terror in its train. We feel that the dis- 
approval of conscience is not the ultimate punishment; is not all 
that we deserve ; but is itself the confession, that we deserve some- 



46 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



thing beyond it. The guilty mind turns involuntarily towards 
Lli3 future, and, unable to penetrate its darkness, looks upon its 
darkness with instinctive apprehension. So far as past experience 
or observation throws any light upon that darkness, it serves but 
to heighten that apprehension. For, whenever we have suffered 
what may be styled the natural consequences of sin, in the pains 
and penalties attendant upon a violation of the laws of our nature, 
we have not found any degree of present suffering, satisfying the 
demands of conscience, or silencing its voice ; but the rather 
awaking its sterner rebukes, and its more fearful denunciations. 
And when, in others, we have seen the consequences of a single 
sin, or a series, mysteriously interwoven throughout the whole 
history of life, and bringing down accumulated sorrows upon 
hoary age, the conscience of hoary age has still re-enacted its 
sentence, and, in the very hour of dissolution, it has still thundered 
through the chambers of the soul the verdict of Guilty ! 

And this brings us to still another fact, which, together with the 
preceding, will give us the true conditions of a problem, which 
natural theology may propound, but cannot solve. 

It is manifest, from the constitution of our nature, and the dis- 
pensations of Providence, that God exercises a moral government 
over the world. But it is equally plain, that, in this present 
world, the sanctions of that government are not fully developed. 
We see enough to conclude that He is a God that " loveth right- 
eousness and hateth iniquity,'' and yet we do not see a system of 
rewards and punishments, invariably meting out to individuals 
according to their deserts. The spectacle of flourishing impiety 
and suffering virtue, whilst not so constant as to unsettle the con- 
viction of a righteous government, is yet too common to admit the 
supposition that present allotments are its ultimate rewards. But 
from the manifest tokens of retribution on the one hand, and the 
occasional discrepancies between character and condition on the 
other, there is but one conclusion to be derived. We live under a 
moral government, which, as to its sanctions, is not yet fully 
developed. Conscience has pronounced its sentence, but the 
execution is postponed. Analogous to those cases, in which the 
transgressor enjoys for years a seeming impunity, until suddenly 
the consequences of his sin overtake him, so there may be reserved 
for a futurity beyond the grave, the punishment of sin which has 
passed through life with a seeming exemption. The difficulties 
which surround the administration of Divine Providence, demand 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



47 



this explanation ; and conscience confirms it, by those presages of 
the future, which still attend the sinner down to the very gates of 
the grave ; there she dismisses him from all further sorrow and 
suffering on earth, and yet she sends him thence into eternity, 
with the verdict of 11 Guilty '' upon his <jou1, to aw r ait the final 
award. 

Given, then, by the deductions of Natural Theology, a righteous 
Governor, a broken law, a condemning conscience, and a retribu- 
tive administration, which carries its sanctions into the other 
world, and we have now the problem to be solved, the grand 
question upon which human destiny hinges, " How can man be 
just with God ?" 

We come with this question to the disciple of Natural Theology, 
and we demand an answer, other than that which revelation has 
given, which shall yet be satisfactory to the reason and the con- 
science. 

He certainly will not point us to the altars of heathenism, 
streaming with the blood of beasts, or dyed with human gore. 
There we may read the confession of guilt, and the felt and fear- 
ful demerit of sin ; but no words of pardon are written there, which 
reason recognizes as the handwriting of God. 

He may refer us to the evident proofs of the Divine benignity, 
in the azure beauty of the heavens ; the balmy breath of spring ; 
the odor of spices ; the song of birds ; the teeming earth, robed 
in its mantle of green, radiant with sunlight and flowers, or rich 
in the golden sheen of its waving harvests. But if, in these, he 
would find the impress of a benevolence which knows no wrath, 
the darkening heavens frown upon the false induction ; the burn- 
ing simoom of the desert, or the borean blasts of winter, sweep 
away the idle hope : the desolating tornado, or the dark wing of 
the pestilence, leave destruction and misery in their path, and the 
yawning earthquake answers back to the crashing thunder of the 
clouds, that the God of nature, moving in terrible majesty, is a 
God to be feared as well as loved. 

Will he tell us, then, of those natural consequences of sin, its 
effects upon the body, and the mind, and the condition, in this 
present world, as its only and sufficient expiation? This con- 
nection betweeu sin and suffering, though it may be real, is not 
always apparent. To the utmost of our apprehension, it is often 
interrupted, and oftener still disproportionate. When it occurs as 
a most manifest retribution, it does not silence, but rather stimu- 



48 



THE NECESSITY OF A EEVELATION. 



lates, the reproaches of conscience, and the apprehensions of the 
guilty. It reaches onward, sometimes, from the early dawn to 
the evening shadows of life, and, linking the sorrows of old age to 
the transgressions of youth, it marks a progression of punishment 
which has no necessary termination at death, and which reason 
and conscience concur in extending into eternity. 

But we are told of a repentance, which recognizing the au- 
thority of the law, and implying some kind and degree of sorrow 
on account of its transgression, may come in the place of suffer- 
ing, and equally satisfy the Lawgiver. 

If such is indeed the fact, it can only be known by means of 
some communications, more or less direct from God himself. 
But revelat on discarded, it must then, either be written on the 
heart, legibly as the law itself, or it must be ascertained by 
induction and inference. 

1. But, so far as our observation of God's dealings extends, 
there is nothing to warrant this inference. What are called the 
natural consequences of sin, and which are but so many intima- 
tions of the Divine purpose to punish it ; are not suspended by 
the repentance of the sinner. Contrition the most hearty, brings 
not back to the debauchee his ruined health and fortune ; un- 
locks no prison doors ; empties no hospitals. The connection 
between sin and suffering, so far as we can trace it, is unin- 
terrupted by repentance, and argues not forgiveness, but its 
opposite. 

2. Is the conclusion, then, rested upon the analogy of human 
conduct ? This would require us first, to show that any of the 
relations which men sustain to each other, is in every respect the 
counterpart to that which we sustain to the Almighty, and then, 
that our conduct in that relation is heaven directed. It is true 
that a parent forgives a penitent child, and God is our Heavenly 
Father. But then it is also true that our Heavenly Father is 
God. As creatures of the same mould our authority over each 
other is limited, and can bear but a faint analogy to the preroga- 
tives of Jehovah. A sense of our infirmity and errors should 
make us forgiving, whereas the essential attributes of Deity, 
would rather imply in Him, an inflexib' justice. It is, then, at 
best, a precarious inference, which from the analogy of human 
conduct would conclude, the probability of Divine forgiveness. 

3. But will it, then, be said, that God has written the law of 
forgiveness upon the heart, side by side with the law of obedience, 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION". 



49 



and by the same light by which we read the one, we may learn 
the other also ? 

Wherein such an arrangement would differ from a direct repeal 
of the law, it must, from the known principles of human nature, 
serve only to stimulate transgression, by a seeming restraint, and 
render it the more daring, by an actual impunity. It would be 
subjtituting repentance, for the penalty of the law, and certifying 
the sinner in advance, that a life of iniquity, when the limits of 
its enjoyment had been reached, could all be expiated by the 
brief sorrows of contrition. But let us examine the record, and 
we shall find that no such law of forgiveness has been written 
upon the heart. The denunciations of conscience do indeed call 
the sinner to repentance, and her sentence becomes the more 
severe, and his guilt is increased by every disregard of that call. 
But when it is regarded, and the culprit at her bar, stands con- 
victed and penitent, recognizing the authority of the law, and his 
own demerit, does conscience thereupon dismiss the cause and 
the criminal, from all further jurisdiction and impeachment for 
that crime ? So far from it, it is the most alarming element in 
her sanctions, that her sentence hands him over to a higher tri- 
bunal, and meanwhile she holds him as in durance, by keeping 
before his mind, ever and anon, his sin and its demerit. His 
tears cannot wash out the record, but the more sincere his re- 
pentance, the clearer his conception of the turpitude of his sin, 
and the more distinct his acknowledgment of its ill desert, with- 
out the slightest implication of forgiveness, in the exercises of his 
own heart. The connection between repentance and pardon is 
not a doctrine of natural Theology, whilst the connection between 
sin and suffering most clearly is. The question then returns 
upon us, with all its urgency, " How shall man be just with 
God?" The grand problem of humanity remains yet unresolved, 
Natural Theology having served only to develop its conditions, 
and press home the necessity of an adequate and authorized 
solution. This limit to its teachings, is well summed up, in the 
nervous language of Chalmers. " There is in it enough of mani- 
festation to awaken the fears of guilt, but not enough again to 
appease them. It emits, and audibly emits a note of terror; but 
in vain do we listen for one authentic woid of comfort from any 
of its oracles. It is able to see the danger, but not the deliver- 
ance. It can excite the forebodings of the human spirit, but can- 
not quell them — knowing just enough to stir the perplexity, but 



50 



THE NECESSITY OF A KEVELATION. 



not enough to set the perplexity at rest. * * There must be a 
measure of light, we do allow ; but like the lurid gleam of a vol- 
cano, it is not a light which guides, but which bewilders and 
terrifies. It prompts the question, but cannot frame or furnish 
the reply. Natural Theology may see as much as shall draw 
forth the anxious interrogation. " What shall I do to be saved?" 
The answer to this comes from a higher theology."* 

From the insufficiency of Natural Theology, then, as mani- 
fested in the errors and abominations of heathenism ; in the 
limited and defective systems of a classic age, blending number- 
less absurdities with a few elementary truths; in the results of 
modern philosophy ; and in the law of conscience ; we conclude, 
that the necessity of a Revelation, is no longer an assumed, but 
a demonstrated fact. 

1. But if so, this necessity, as w T e have seen, overthrows that 
entire fabric of infidelity, which is built upon the assumption of 
the sufficiency of nature's light. 

2. It furthermore rises above the ruins of that hypothesis, a 
well-founded presumption, which in the light of God's attributes, 
becomes a strong probability, that a Revelation would be given. 

3. From the vantage ground of this probability, we are brought 
to inquire for that revelation so justly expected. And by as much 
as the Bible is superior and eminent beyond comparison, among 
all alleged communications of the Divine will, by so much, this 
probability becomes a direct evidence to its truth. The proofs of 
its Divine original, in all their variety of miracles, prophecy, and 
precept, gain strength and urgency from this foregone probability. 
But if, besides, we find in the Bible a complete correspondence and 
adaptation to those wants of our nature which proclaim its neces- 
sity, the argument, here, becomes demonstrative, and is, precisely, 
that reasoning from effect to cause, by which, from the adaptations 
of external nature, we prove an intelligent Creator. 

To exhibit, fully, this correspondence and adaptation, would 
require another Lecture, yea, it would require a volume. But, from 
even entering upon a field so inviting, we are precluded, not merely 
by the vastness of its extent, but because unwilling to trench upon 
a topic which belongs more properly to others. You will have no 
reason to regret the limits, thus imposed, and for ourselves, we 
are well content to perform the humbler office of an usher, to an 



Bridgewater Treatise. 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



51 



argument, which we regard as one of the most convincing within 
the whole range of the Evidences of Christianity. 

But if we may not extend our argument, and carry it home to 
a legitimate conclusion in the track which we have indicated, we 
may, perhaps, prepare you the better for that conclusion, and 
deepen the felt conviction of the necessity of a revelation, by 
recurring for a moment to 

THE CONDITION OF MAN WITHOUT IT. 

It is recorded of a tyrant, whose cruelty rivers of blood could not 
satiate, that in the greediness of a cannibal ferocity, he uttered a 
wish, that the whole Roman people had but one neck, and with a 
single blow he would destroy them all. By their manifest desire 
to extirpate the existence, and the very name of Christianity from 
the earth, the advocates of infidelity confess to a wish even yet 
more atrocious. 

We do not judge them too harshly, in saying this, for whilst we 
would not ascribe to them, in all cases, a malice prepense, in that 
which they desire, yet we do maintain, that he labors to inflict a 
greater injury upon his race, who ignorantly or otherwise seeks to 
shut out the light of heaven from the human mind, than he who 
could find it in his heart to annihilate a nation. Happily, the pur- 
pose of unbelief is quite as impracticable as the fiendish thought 
of a Nero, every assault upon Christianity having only served to 
establish it the more, by bringing out into more bold relief the ac- 
cumulated and accumulating evidences of its truth. But let us 
suppose the object of infidelity to be accomplished, the light of 
revelation to be extinct, and Christianity forgotten from among 
men : would it not be like striking out the sun from the heavens, 
and bringing back upon the earth the darkness of chaos, and trans- 
forming the abode of man into a void and formless waste ? 

1. To estimate how much society owes to the Bible, we must 
estimate the value of all those civil and social institutions, which 
distinguish the most enlightened from the barbarous and semi- 
barbarous nations of the earth. To trace the progressive influence 
of revelation in the world, is to trace the progress of civilization. 
Commensurate with the increase of the one, has been the advance 
of the other, and the same causes which have obstructed and hin- 
dered the former, have invariably retarded the latterv 

It is believed by many, and upon the ground of evidence which 



52 



THE NECESSITY OF A EEVELATION. 



cannot be easily set aside, that it is to revelation, the world owes 
its knowledge of language and of letters. It is at least certain that 
the literature of the world, has in every age received from this 
source its highest impulse and aid. It is here alone that history, 
carrying back her records to the birth of time, and across that 
void, which antiquity had sought in vain to fill up with her fables, 
absurd and monstrous, dates her narrative " In the beginning'" 
and leads it on from thence, with a consistent chronology, and in 
annals bearing the manifest impress of truth, down to the authen- 
tic monuments of an age, comparatively recent, which but for the 
Bible, had been the earliest within our knowledge. Poetry and elo- 
quence have ever found their finest models in the Scriptures, and the 
loftiest genius has not been ashamed to borrow its inspirations from 
them. " It is not undeserved homage to this sacred book to say that 
philosophers and great men of other times, lighted their torch in 
Zion, and the altars of learning caught their first spark from the 
flame that glowed within her temple."* Natural science has found 
in the Bible a key to many of the mysteries of Creation, and in all 
her departments, has received from it aid, more than she has been 
always willing to acknowledge. In the leaf of every plant and 
flower, botany reveals the marks of creative wisdom and design. 
But it may be questioned, if the preconceived attributes of God, 
did not first give direction to her inquiry, and guide to her discov- 
eries. The maxim that " Jehovah has created nothing in vain," 
we hold to have been the basis of all those minute investigations, 
which have evolved from the organism of insects, and animalculae, 
the same proofs of omnipotent skill and contrivance, which appear 
in the constitution of man, and the creation of a world. So also 
on the broader scale of a more extended inquiry, the knowledge 
of a Great First Cause, has guided the labors and aided the dis- 
coveries of the astronomer. He has advanced with a bolder stride 
through the fields of space, and stretched his thoughts to the com- 
pass of theories more extended and sublime, from a more just con- 
ception of Almighty power. We verily believe, that the stupen- 
dous disclosures of this noble science would never have been 
attained, or if attained, would have so overwhelmed the mind by 
their vastness, as to beget a suspicion of their truth, but for the 
previous knowledge of Him 

* Dr. Spring. See on this whole topic his admirable book, " Obligations of the 
World to the Bible." 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



53 



" who leads Orion forth 
And guides Arcturus round the n^rth." 

It cannot be doubted that the human mind, freed on the one hand, 
from the darkness of that superstition, which overcast the bright- 
est intellects of ancient paganism, and exempt on the other, from 
that tendency to universal doubt and distrust, which always per- 
tains more or less to skepticism ; under the genial light of revela- 
tion, and certified of those great facts which it contains ; acts with 
a more confident freedom, springs to a higher vigor, and expands 
to the grasp of sublimer truth. "Why is it that the chief secrets 
of nature have been penetrated only in Christian times, and in 
Christian lands, and that men whose names are first in the roll on 
which science emblazons her achievements, have been men on 
whom fell the rich light of revelation ?" It is true, unbelief and 
atheism have also had their representatives among these illustrious 
names. But their eminence has been attained under the light 
which they discarded, by the aid of its influence, and in spite of 
their errors. Compare the present advancement of science in any 
of its departments, with the brightest days of oriental philosophy, 
and find a satisfactory reason, if you can, for that astonishing pro- 
gress which has marked the Christian era, especially in its later 
centuries, other than the influence, direct and indirect, of the 
Christian Scriptures. 

It would be easy to trace this influence, also, in the progress of 
the useful and elegant arts ; in all those contrivances of skill and 
inventions of genius, by which the elements of nature, once so for- 
midable as to be deified, or so subtle as to be deemed supernatural, 
have been subjugated to the necessities, the convenience, and the 
pleasures of men. But we mark the influence of revelation more 
distinctly, in its healthful effects upon the varied relations of life. 
We owe to the Bible, all the hallowed associations and nameless 
endearments, that cluster round the domestic hearth, and impart 
its magic power, to the place we call our home. It is Christianity 
which consecrates the union of willing hearts, in the marriage bond, 
and pronouncing its benediction upon their plighted vows, envi- 
rons this relation with those solemn sanctions, which are the safe- 
guards of virtue, and the barriers to the unlimited concubinage of 
lawless passion. Under its tutelage parental instinct becomes 
" strong as death," and binds the mother to the cradle of her 
infant in all the tender assiduities of watching and weariness, by 
a tie which only grows and strengthens with each new demand 



54 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



upon her care and toil. While the history of pagan nation?, and 
the habits of licentiousness engendered by a philosophy which owns 
no law but desire, give us the manifold and mournful proofs, that 
a mother may forget her sucking child and cast it out, a sacrifice 
to the demon of superstition, or to the demon of lust. The Chris- 
tian family circle, the home of love and piety, is itself, a triumph of 
the gospel, which proclaims its pre-eminence, even if it had no 
other. 

But it has also triumphs upon a larger scale. Where among 
all contemporary nations will you find a form of government, 
which can bear a comparison with the inspired and equitable 
code of the Jewish theocracy 1 Study then the subsequent his- 
tory of governments, and you will find, that since the dawn of 
the Christian era, wherever the principles of civil and religious 
liberty have prevailed, wherever public order and personal safety, 
the just authority of government, and the highest immunities 
and welfare of the governed have been combined, there the in- 
fluence of the Bible has been proportionably felt and acknowledged. 
There have been despotisms, it is true, under the name of religion, 
but when tyranny puts on this mask, it is always careful first, to 
put out the light. " Christianity," says Montesquieu, "is a stranger 
to despotic power." "Religion," says DeTocqueville, "is the com- 
panion of liberty in all its battles and conflicts, the cradle of its 
infancy, and the divine source of its claims." England owes to 
the Bible the great charter of its liberties. And our own Republic 
stands this day, unexampled in the history of the world, simply 
because it is a land of Bibles. Take away the influence of this 
book from our wide-spread country, and how long would it be, 
under the necessary and rapid degeneracy of public morals, be- 
fore the decisions of the ballot-box, would give place to the deci 
sions of the sword, the prerogatives of right to the power of 
might, law to lust, government to anarchy, and anarchy to 
despotism ? 

We may not further pursue this train of thought, but with 
these suggestions, we point you to the manifest influence of reve- 
lation upon the literature, the learning, the arts, the domestic ties, 
and the political relations of mankind, and pointing you at the 
same time to the absence of this influence where alone it is absent, 
amid the darkness of heathenism, we ask, if the condition of man 
without revelation is not, }f necessity, a condition of barbarism 1 



THE NECESSITY" OF A REVELATION. 



55 



2. But there are still other aspects of his condition, presenting a 
yet more melancholy picture. 

There is in every breast an abiding conviction, which neither 
the pleadings of sophistry, nor the dominion of passion, can 
wholly extirpate, of an invisible almighty power, the disposer of 
events, and the arbiter of destiny. So universal is this, that it 
may with some propriety be styled " a sense of the Divine exist- 
ence." Man must have a God, simply because he cannot pos- 
sibly prove, and he has never been able, effectually, to persuade 
himself, that there is none, though many a " fool may have said 
it in his heart." But if God is revealed to us, only in his works, 
our utmost knowledge of Him, can only serve to awaken appre- 
hension and stimulate our fears. In the phenomena of nature 
there are indications of wrath as well as goodness. In the events 
of life, there is a succession and intensity of sorrows, would justify 
the sentiment, that "man was made to mourn." And in the 
presages and premonitions of conscience there is " a fearful 
looking for, of judgment and fiery indignation." With no better 
support than the deductions of a fruitless and bewildered philoso- 
phy, man is called, then, to encounter " all the ills that flesh is 
heir to." And he must meet at every turn of life, with afflictions 
which he cannot explain, with sorrows which know no solace. 
By a sudden calamity, or a succession, the garnered wealth of 
years is swept away, and hope expires within the breast of him 
who has neither the fortitude to endure, nor the ability to retrieve 
the unlooked-for reversion. The grave closes upon the objects of 
a tender regard, and there is nothing to restrain, or to sweeten, 
the bitter tears of the mourner. Disease invades the frame, and 
we cannot tell, whence cometh sickness, nor why. We mark the 
dread approach of Death by the painful harbingers of his coming, 
but his aspect of terror is unrelieved, for even when his skeleton 
hand is on our brow, and the light of life is darkening, we know 
not, £ what is Death !' or 1 what is there beyond it !' It is a hard 
blow to bear, when he who yesterday was rich, stands to-day amid 
the wreck of a departed fortune, penniless and bankrupt. And 
we wonder not at that sullen gloom of disappointment, sometimes 
deepening into despair, and seeking in suicide an end to its 
sorrows, of those who in a Christian land, are yet wanting in a 
Christian's consolation. 

To the heart of sensibility, it is a harder blow, when one, in 
whom its life, and love and hopes are centered, to whom the very 



56 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



soul is knit by a thousand nameless ties, is torn from the last em- 
brace, and hidden from the eyes forever. A man may put on the 
stoic then, and wrap about him the frigid maxims of a cheerless 
philosophy, but they soothe not the anguish of a bleeding heart. 
Nothing but a voice from beyond the grave can waken, again, the 
inspiration of hope, and whisper its throbbings into peace. Read the 
touching lament of Augustine for his friend, while yet his darken- 
ed soul was moving in a heathen element, and you will under- 
stand what an apostle means by "sorrowing without hope." "At 
this grief," he says, " my heart was utterly darkened ; and what- 
ever I beheld was death. Mine eyes sought him everywhere, but 
he was not granted them, and I hated all places, for that they 
had him not. I became a great riddle to myself, and I asked my 
soul, why she was so sad, and why she disquieted me sorely ; 
but she knew not what to answer me. If I said, ' trust in God, 
she very rightly obeyed me not ; because that most dear friend, 
whom she had lost was, being man, both truer and better, than 
that phantasm she was bid to trust in. Only tears were sweet to 
me, for they succeeded my friend, in the dearest of my affections." 
But there is a grief too great for tears, and if you take away the 
light which Revelation sheds upon the tomb, and then are called 
to stand upon its brink, and hear the rumbling earth as it falls 
upon the coffined dust of the loved and lost, if your heart has 
ever swollen with a true emotion, you will know, what is that 
greater grief. 

To you, young gentlemen, in the morning freshness of your 
day, and with your sky as yet, perhaps, unclouded, these con- 
siderations may seem to have but little urgency. But, mark it ! 
you will not have travelled far in the appointed pilgrimage of life, | 
before you will both find and feel that life is not that bright and^ 
sunny scene which youthful hopes had pictured it. It has its] 
shadows, too, deep and sombre shadows. It has its sorrows, 1 
which Heaven alone can heal. Man's devious pathway to the 
grave is, full often, a "via dolorosa" in which he needs a com- 
forter, as well as guide. You may destroy his sensibilities, and, 
as he approximates the brute, he will cease to feel. You may 
dethrone his reason, and, in the delirium of passion, he will 
laugh away his cares. Thus, without the Bible, he may stumble 
on through life in stern and sullen gloom, or, insensate and reck- 
less, stifling his nature, and forswearing humanity, he mav bound 
along, as gaily and as madly as e'er a gibbering maniac among 



THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 



57 



the tombs ; but, as a rational and sentient being, without the 
Bible, he can only tread his sad and tearful way bewildered and 
desponding. 

But grave or gay, reckless or thoughtful, it is a brief pilgrimage 
at best, and life's battle, or its ballet, ends in the strife of death. 
Under whatever aspect we may view it, this inevitable event is 
the most momentous in the history of man. Be it so, — that physi- 
cally it is but " the turning of a few ounces of blood into a dif- 
ferent channel," and thereafter an eternal sleep ; — yet who that 
knows the boon of being, recoils not from the thought of that 
being's end, as the incomparable calamity ? There is a greater, 
we do allow, and it is only the guilty fear of this could ever have 
fathered the wish, or endured the thought, of the soul's annihila- 
tion. And yet that thought, that wish, can never so possess the 
mind as to exterminate that fear. Tell us not of death-scenes, 
calm and peaceful as the Christian's dying hour, where no Chris- 
tian's hope was known. Is it the untutored savage upon his 
couch of turf, who dreams of happier hunting grounds ? If you 
could yourself become a savage, ignorant as he, like him you 
might also die the victim of a fond delusion. It avails no more to 
plead the few examples of classic story, except you can also rein- 
state the Olympian gods, and make to yourself a gospel of Charon 
and his boat. And as for the boasted instances of modern philo- 
sophic calmness, we aver, that, upon the principles of Deism 
itself, it can be shown that such calmness, if it is real, is a treason 
against nature, and an outrage upon right reason. If Natural 
Theology cannot demonstrate that there is a hereafter, much less 
can she demonstrate that there is none. Under a dread uncer- 
tainty of a future state, coupled with a conscious guilt, which, in 
the prospect and probability of retribution, deepens into remorse, 
tell me then, ought man to be calm, in this dire necessity of his 
nature? Only an authentic voice, from the eternal throne, can 
possibly give him the assurance, that with the destruction of the 
body, his being ceases, or that, continuing to exist, his existence 
shall not be one of suffering. But nature has no such voice, and 
all her utterances, fairly interpreted, contradict the hope. To die 
without the light of revelation, is to take a fearful leap into an 
abyss of darkness, and on the brink, conscience, like an avenging 
spirit, points to a thousand evil omens, in the spectral array of 
long-forgotten sins, and cries in the dying sinner's ear, "'Tis an 
abyss of woe !" 



58 



THE NECESSITY OF A EEVELATION. 



If, then, with respect to his civil and social relations, man's con- 
dition without the Bible is a condition of barbarism, no less, with 
respect to his personal spiritual interests, is it a condition of 
unmitigated, hopeless misery. On the supposition which we 
have considered, if we conclude not that this is a God-forsaken 
world, it must be because there are in it the manifest tokens of 
Divine displeasure. Man struts his little hour upon its surface, 
ignorant alike of his origin and his destiny. Doubtful and 
desponding, he reaches the goal of mortal life, pressed down by 
present sorrow, and yet shrinking and aghast at the thought of 
" greater ills he knows not of." He dies ! scarce knowing 
whether he should most desire a conscious immortality, or an 
eternal sleep ! The grave closes upon him, but no promised resur- 
rection consecrates his dust, no words of hope are written on his 
tomb ! 



CONSIDERED AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ET 

E1Y. HENRY RUFFNER, D.D., LL.D. 



A.KBitclie.sc 




According to the evangelical records, Jesus Christ appealed to 
his miracles as evidences of his Divine mission. (John v. 36.) 
His apostles made the same appeal. (Acts ii. 22 ; Heb. ii. 4.) 
They did not require men to believe the gospel on the bare word 
of its preachers. They founded its claim to a Divine origin on 
the attestation of God, as given in the mighty signs and wonders 
which he exhibited, first by the agency of the Great Founder, and 
then by the instrumentality of the twelve apostolical witnesses, 
who were commissioned to publish the gospel among all nations. 

Without some miraculous token of the Divine sanction, no sys- 
tem of religion can present infallible evidence of its being a revela- 
tion from God. 

Men may publish doctrines that are sublime, pure, benevolent, 
and fully approved by the reason and conscience of mankind ; yet, 
however they may appear worthy to have emanated from heaven, 
they may still be the product of merely human wisdom. What- 
ever the human mind is capable of receiving by revelation from 
God, it may also by possibility originate by the exercise of its own 
powers. Divine revelation, though flowing from an infinite source, 
is necessarily limited to the capacity of the recipient. In God and 
in his works, are depths of wisdom, reaching infinitely beyond all 
the profundities of human thought. The human mind seems 
indeed to have an indefinite range of thought ; it can form com- 
binations innumerable of those elements of thought, which it de- 
rives from sense and reason. But it can form no conception of any- 
thing beyond the informations of sense and the suggestions of rea- 
son. Therefore while human nature remains unchanged, the 
Spirit of God can reveal nothing to the spirit of man, but what is 
already within the natural range of human conception, and 
intrinsically undistinguishable from the natural products of the 
mind. Many a poor enthusiast has mistaken the ardor of his feel- 
ings and the vividness of his conceptions for the inspirations of God. 
Without an external sign from God no man can certainly distin- 



62 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

guish a Divine revelation from what is purely human ; for reve- 
lation is necessarily so humanized in passing through a human 
medium, that nothing indicating its Divine origin remains dis- 
tinctly impressed upon it. As external evidence is necessary to 
distinguish genuine history from ingeniously wrought fictions, so 
without the criterion of miracles we might confound the revela- 
tions of the Holy Spirit with the dreams of the enthusiast and the 
inventions of the impostor. 

But when God connects miraculous demonstrations with the 
doctrines of inspired men, we know that the teachers speak by his 
authority ; for w T hilst we know that men can originate whatever 
doctrines men can understand, we know also that no man can 
work a miracle, unless God be with him. 

My subject is miracles, their nature, their susceptibility of proof, 
and the evidence which they afford of the Divine origin of Chris- 
tianity. 

I shall first discuss the theory of miracles in general, and sec- 
ondly, the miracles of Jesus in particular, considered as an evidence 
of his Divine mission. 

I. The general theory of miracles comprehends two points of 
inquiry, — 1st. What is a miracle? and 2d. Can the occurrence of 
a miracle, if it should take place, be proved by the testimony of 
men ? 

First, then, — What is a miracle ? Various definitions have been 
given. A miracle is a suspension or violation of the law of nature. 
It is a supernatural event : It is a deviation from the course of 
nature, &c. Any of these definitions with a little explanation will 
answer. But I will offer another which is more explicit. A mira- 
cle is a sign,obvious to the senses, that God has interposed his 
power to control the established course of nature. 

The novelty of an event does not make it miraculous ; else 
every new discovery in natural science would be a miracle. Nor 
is an event w T hich is simply unaccountable, to be esteemed mirac- 
ulous. Unaccountable events sometimes occur, such as the fall 
of meteoric stones, which come hissing, glowing, and exploding, 
from the upper regions of the atmosphere. All that we can say 
of them, is, that we know not whence they come, nor how they 
originate. But for aught that we know, they may be the product 
of natural causes. 

It should be observed that our knowledge of the laws of nature, 
and of their various complicated workings, is* very partial and 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



G3 



defective. We see many effects of which the causes are hidden. 
If they are such as frequently occur, we reasonably infer from their 
frequency, that they spring from natural causes. Even when the 
event is extraordinary in its nature and of rare occurrence, we 
may still judge from circumstances, that it is merely the effect of a 
rare combination of natural causes, like the connection between the 
Siamese twins. The rarity of an event may also be accounted for 
sometimes by the regularity of nature in her courses, producing 
only once in a long time the most striking coincidences. Thus 
the planets vary their aspects in the heavens continually ; — age 
after age they pursue their mazy dance through the zodiac, pre- 
senting innumerable figures to the astronomer's eye ; until at last 
they all meet together in a splendid group, a wonder to human 
eyes ; then they begin their grand cycle again ; to meet once more 
perhaps long after the generations of mankind shall have passed 
away. In this case we know that the event proceeds from the 
regular movements of nature : but why may not equally rare phe- 
nomena, result from a secret concatenation of natural causes 
stretching back to the creation of the world? 

Phenomena purely mental or spiritual cannot be demonstrably 
miraculous, although they may be such in reality. We under- 
stand too little of the nature of spirit and of the action of spirit upon 
spirit to distinguish the natural from the supernatural in spiritual 
agency. We cannot trace the various phases of human madness 
to their causes : how then can we determine what is or is not 
according to nature in the deeper mysteries of the spiritual 
world ? 

A miracle, to be cognizable by mortal man, must appear within 
this " visible diurnal sphere," in which he is an agent and a look- 
er-on, from the cradle to the grave. Here he learns by his own 
experience and that of the generations before him, what are the 
constitution and laws of nature, what is the orderly course of 
events, what are the causes of many things, and what is within 
the power of those living agents that God has created upon the 
earth. All his experience of external things is gained through the 
medium of the senses, and the objects of sense are those with 
which he is best acquainted. Here then is the field within which 
he can distinguish between the natural and the supernatural. 
Here, if anywhere, will God give him signs from heaven, by which 
the revelation? of God may be distinguished from the wisdom of 



64 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the philosopher, the dreams of the enthusiast, and the impostures 
of the false prophet. 

But there are false miracles as well as false prophets, — delusive 
appearances by which the credulous are often deceived. Hence 
the necessity of an infallible criterion by which the miracles of 
God may be distinguished from the impositions of man. 

As we derive all our knowledge of external things from the 
senses, so w T e must hold that our senses give infallible evidence of 
what they perceive. Jugglers and false prophets may elude our 
senses and impose on our understandings ; but they can do it only 
on the supposition that we see what we see and hear what we hear. 
They deceive us by what they conceal, not by what they exhibit. 
If we could perceive by our senses all that was done, the deception 
would be at an end and the w 7 onder would disappear. But be- 
cause our understandings are liable to delusion, when objects are 
but partially and indistinctly apprehended by the senses ; nothing 
should be construed as a miracle, but what is in the first place 
definitely, distinctly, and evidently perceived by the senses, — in 
the second place, clear and intelligible to the understanding ; — and 
in the third place, manifestly inconsistent with the established 
order of nature ; and therefore impossible to be accounted for with- 
out supposing that God has interposed to control the law of 
nature. 

When we consider Us at a real miracle is a sign which God ex- 
hibits of his power to control the laws of nature, we cannot doubt 
that every real miracle will have in it a dignity and a character 
befitting its sublime and glorious author. God can never descend 
to play the petty tricks of a juggler, or to employ his miraculous 
power for so low an end as to puzzle the understanding or to ex- 
cite idle wonder in his creature man : nor would he endow a human 
being with supernatural power for any base or trifling end. Hence 
a miracle must not be in the power of a man to produce at will, or 
by the use of means. It must not come by magical incantations, 
nor by mesmeric " passes," nor by questions to be answered Dy 
"spiritual rappings." It must not submit to be sold by perambu- 
lating lecturers at so much a ticket. It must be nothing ridicu 
lous or fantastic, nothing like the petty tricks usually ascribed to 
the devil, because the puzzled spectators know not to what else 
they should ascribe them. It must not be an unmeaning sign, an 
insignificant display of supernatural power, teaching nothing but 
the fact, which is better taught by nature in her regular move- 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 65 



ments, that there is a God. Do not the heavens and the earth 
evidently show the handiwork of their Creator? Is not nature 
herself the greatest of all miracles ? When God makes nature 
deviate from her prescribed course, it must be for a special sign of 
some extraordinary communication from himself. 

Again, if a miracle be supernatural ; if it imply a suspension of 
some known law of nature : — then I hold that no created agent 
can by his own power work a miracle. No angel nor demon, how- 
ever " great in might," can break the order of nature, or disturb 
the operation of those physical laws by which the creation is regu- 
lated and preserved. God has so constituted the system of nature, 
and so regulated its operations, that the whole is a glorious mani- 
festation of his supreme power, wisdom and goodness. Were he to 
subject any part of this magnificent and well-ordered system to the 
discretionary control of any created being, then nature would cease 
to be altogether an expression of his Divine attributes ; the work- 
ings of her infinitely complex machinery, would be no longer under 
his exclusive control ; some of his own creatures would share with 
him the sovereignty ; the inferior creatures, such as man, would be 
in some measure dependent on subordinate rulers of the world, who 
would justly be feared as gods, and the ancient system of heathen- 
ish idolatry would be founded on fact. 

But can we believe that the Author of nature would subject 
any part of the system to the will of a creature, who is himself 
but a part of the same system, and, consequently, subject to its 
laws ? He has endowed created agents with faculties greater or 
less ; but these are themselves subordinate to the preordained 
laws of nature. Rational beings may violate the moral law ; but 
so much the more necessary is it, that they should be strictly 
subjected to those physical laws, by which God maintains his 
sovereignty over nature. 

I argue also from analogy against the opinion that any created 
being can, by his own power, work a miracle. We know that 
man has vastly more power, both mental and corporeal, than the 
worm which he treads under his feet. His understanding is com- 
paratively infinite, his strength ten thousand fold greater, yet is 
he as absolutely subject to the laws of nature as the worm in the 
dust, or the animalcule, whose life-time is a day, and whose 
world is a drop of water. He can devise and construct machines, 
of which the poor worm can form no conception, but for the effect 
of these, and all his other operations, he is entirely dependent on 

5 



66 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the laws of nature. What these enable him to do, he can do ; 
but, contrary to these, he can do absolutely nothing at all. He 
cannot make a hair of his head either white or black, — he cannot 
make a grain of sand either heavier or lighter, — he cannot make 
a thorn-bush bear grapes, nor reanimate the dead body of a fly. 
Suppose his wisdom and his physical strength to be increased a 
thousand fold ; will he then be able to do any of these things ? 
Will he then have advanced a single step towards a sovereign 
power over the laws of nature ? No ; nor is the mightiest demon 
in the universe any more able to control a law of nature, than a 
Solomon or a Samson, — a worm or an animalcule. The power 
that can work a miracle must differ, not only in degree, but in 
kind, from that of created beings. It is a creative power. A man 
may kill his brother man, because the law of nature gives him 
the power ; but when he has killed, neither he nor all the hosts 
of heaven and hell can restore that dead man to life. Only the 
God that made him can raise him from the dead. 

I conclude, therefore, that every miracle, every manifestation 
of a power superior to the law of nature, is a sign from God, that 
he has, for some important and holy end, seen fit to interrupt the 
established course of nature. 

I proceed to the second inquiry under this head, which is, — 
Are miracles susceptible of proof by testimony ? In other 
words, Can we in any case reasonably believe men, who testify 
that they have witnessed a miraculous event ? 

A miracle must, from its nature, be a highly improbable event 
It is an exception to the uniform rule of nature ; a partial de* 
rangement in the long-established working of this great machine, 
the universe. 

One of the earliest lessons that experience teaches mankind, is 
the uniformity of nature. Our belief in this uniformity seems to 
be constitutional, and to be developed immediately after experi- 
ence begins. The burnt child dreads the fire. He believes from 
one experiment that it is the nature of fire to burn. So his 
instinct teaches him to reason about nature in general. Eatperi 
ence in general confirms our first conclusions respecting the 
established relation between causes and effects. God has wisely 
ordained that things should be distinguishable by their permanent 
properties, and that the course of events should depend upon 
established relations between antecedents and consequents, causes 
and effects. Without steadfastness in the course of nature, human 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 6T 

reason could have no guide, human sciences and arts could not 
exist, neither instinct nor intelligence could avail the creatures of 
God, and nature herself would have no voice to proclaim her 
Divine original. 

In a disordered universe, there could he no miracle, because 
there would be no law of nature by which reason could distin- 
guish the natural from the supernatural. If the Deity often 
changed the course of nature, the laws of nature would be weak- 
ened ; and the course of events being unsteady, the signs of God 
would be less manifest, both in the regularity of nature and in 
her deviations. As miracles more frequently occurred, the less 
miraculous would they appear. They would come to resemble 
the jarrings of an ill-constructed machine, and would be expected 
as things of course. 

Miracles, therefore, to answer any useful purpose in the moral 
government of God, must necessarily be reserved for rare and 
important occasions. But for the very reason that they must be 
the most rare and extraordinary of all events, they are in them- 
selves the most improbable, and require the strongest evidence to 
render them credible. 

Besides the intrinsic improbability of miracles, the frequency of 
false reports of supernatural events, and the ingenious methods 
by which impostors often delude credulous people, should make 
us particularly cautious how we give credence to any report or 
any appearance of a miracle. So improbable an event should not 
gain our belief, until we have carefully scrutinized both the 
nature of the fact reported and the evidence of its occurrence. 

But reported miracles are not all equally improbable. The 
degree of their antecedent improbability depends on the nature, 
circumstances, and relations of the event. Though all miracles 
are equally impossible with man and equally possible with God, 
they are not equally improbable in themselves. Reason teaches 
us to expect that if God work a miracle, he will not on the one 
hand make it so portentously great as to derange the general 
course of nature, nor on the other hand so contemptibly small as 
to excite ridicule. He would not summon the thunders of heaven 
to kill a fly. Whilst he made the miraculous nature of the event 
sufficiently evident, he would also make it correspond in moral 
significancy with the occasion on which it was introduced ; making 
it a miracle of benevolence, when it w T as designed to authenticate 
a mission of mercy, and perhaps a miracle of punishment, when 



68 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



it was designed to enforce the authority of a violated law. 1 
deem it reasonable to assume that God would not turn nature 
out of her regular course without some moral necessity, nor exhibit 
a sign that was incongruous to the occasion. Much less would 
he affix his signature to anything that was revolting to the rea- 
son and the moral sense which he implanted in the human 
breast. How absurd is it to imagine that he would sanction by 
miracles the scheme of a wicked man, the vagaries of a fool, or 
the visions of a half-crazy fanatic ! Or is it credible that God 
Almighty would be so lavish of his miraculous signs, as to 
employ them for the establishment of relic-worship and transub- 
stantiation ? 

But when the reported miracles appear to have been morally 
necessary for the establishment of some great and salutary truth, 
and when they are in themselves, their circumstances and their 
human agents, altogether worthy of their Divine Author ; then I 
think that in the opinion of all candid men, they are not so im- 
probable, as to put their proof beyond the reach of human testi- 
mony. 

Consider, friends, what the consequences would be, if God had 
so constituted the nature of things as to make it impossible to 
prove a miracle by the testimony of eye-witnesses. In this case 
the Father of mankind would have forever precluded himself 
from making a supernatural revelation of his will. In my intro- 
ductory remarks I showed that miracles are the only reliable test 
of Divine revelation. I have also shown that frequency of mira 
cles would detract from their efficacy as signs of God. But how 
exceedingly common and how apparently natural would they 
become, if they were exhibited to all mankind as evidence of a 
Divine revelation ! I have not the presumption to say absolutely 
that God could not prove a revelation to mankind, by working 
miracles before the eyes of all in every age. But I can say with- 
out presumption that such a method would bear no analogy to 
the general system of Divine government. It is true that God 
has written the signs of his existence and perfections over the 
whole face of nature, and displayed them to the eyes of all man- 
kind ; yet how few are able of themselves to give them the right 
interpretation ! How generally did mankind, with the heavens 
and the earth in view, fail to discover the One Only Living and 
True God, and in their blindness worship imaginary gods and 
dumb idols! Is it probable, that they would have succeeded 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY". 69 

better in the interpretation of a universal system of miracles in 
proof of a revelation from God ? A French atheist* once de- 
manded, why, if there be a God, he did not give a proof of his ex- 
istence, by so arranging the stars in the form of letters, that they 
should spell his name ! But the poor fool did not say, in what 
language God would write his name in the heavens more intelli- 
gibly than he has already done. Without discussing this point 
farther, it is sufficient to say that God has made the mass of man- 
kind dependent on testimony and on the instruction of qualified 
teachers, for nearly all their knowledge; and we may presume 
that this is on the whole the wisest and best way in which the 
knowledge of revelation could be imparted to the human race. In 
this way, it would be impossible for God to verify a system of re- 
vealed truth, unless he made miracles capable of proof by testi- 
mony. 

And consider whether there be not questions of the utmost im- 
portance, which men cannot solve by the light of nature, but 
which our Father in Heaven might be disposed to solve by reve- 
lation ; such questions as these, for example. Are our souls im- 
mortal ? Shall we be rewarded and punished in a future state 
for the deeds done in the present life 1 Will God forgive us our 
sins ; and if so, on what conditions ? These are questions on 
which human destiny hangs, on which human laws and morals 
depend for their principal sanctions, and human society for its 
improvement from age to age. Without faith founded on a 
Divine revelation of future rewards and punishments, and of 
pardon for sin on the conditions of repentance and atonement, 
the motives to virtue and amendment of life would be defective. 
Without a revealed religion, the generations of men must ever 
wander in the mazes of error and superstition, or cast off the 
shackles of false religion only to run into the licentiousness of 
practical atheism. 

Without a revelation from God there can be no assurance of 
immortal life, of retributions after death, of Divine forgiveness of 
sins, of grace, to help us in our time of need, or of a Heavenly 
Father's watchfulness and care over the helpless children of mor- 
tality. Human philosophy cannot unveil the secrets of death ; 
reason has invented a telescope that can penetrate the starry 
skies ; but wherewith shall the soul of the living pierce the 



* Mirabeaud, in h?9 Systeme de la Nature. 



70 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



" shadows, clouds, and darkness," that rest upon the eternal state 
of man ? 

For all that man needs to know respecting the material world 
and the common affairs of life, nature and reason are sufficient 
teachers ; but if this world be only the cradle of the soul, or at the 
most its infant-school — and if for its better training here, and its 
happier state hereafter, it needs a spiritual instruction which na- 
ture and experience cannot give — then surely it is not impossible, 
nor so very improbable, that the Parent of mankind should send 
us a message of instruction, adapted to our wants, and accom- 
panied by visible signs of its heavenly origin. 

Now, supposing that we should hear of a teacher who professed 
to be a messenger from heaven, who taught a religion, solving 
the great questions before mentioned, and embracing a pure and 
benevolent code of morals — a teacher whose personal character 
was every way befitting his profession, and who wrought mira- 
cles of mercy and goodness in proof of his mission — I ask, would 
such a report, taken altogether, be so utterly incredible, that no 
sort or amount of testimony could make it worthy of credit? 
May I not appeal to the common sense of every one who hears 
me to bear me out in the assertion, that such a report might be 
verified to the satisfaction of any reasonable man by the testi- 
mony of witnesses ? The reported miracles, taken in connection 
with the other reported facts, could not be so improbable as to 
make all possible testimony in their favor unworthy of belief. 

But the celebrated historian and philosopher David Hume at- 
tempted to frame an argument against miracles, which he fancied 
would overthrow all faith in revealed religion, by showing that 
human testimony could not in any case afford proof of a miracu- 
lous event. This argument, invented by a skeptical philosopher, 
fond of paradox, has received more attention than it deserves ; 
but as it is ingeniously framed, and contains all that can be said 
against the credibility of reported miracles, I shall give you the 
sum and substance of the argument in his own words, and then 
point out the fallacies interwoven with it, and demonstrate the 
sufficiency of human testimony to prove any fact, however im- 
probable. 

" Experience (says Hume) is our only guide in reasoning." 
" A wise man weighs the evidence ; he considers which side is 
supported by the greater number of experiments; to that side he 
inclines with doubt and hesitation." " When the fact which the 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



71 



testimony endeavors to establish partakes of the marvellous — the 
evidence resulting from testimony admits of a diminution, greater 
or less, in proportion as the fact is more or less unusual." 

" The reason why we place any credit in v. itnesses, is not de- 
rived from any connection which we perceive a priori between 
testimony and reason, but because we are accustomed to find a 
conformity between them." 

" When the fact is such as has seldom fallen, under oar obser- 
vation, here is a contest between two opposite experiences, of 
which the one destroys the other, as far as its force goes, and the 
superior can only operate on the mind by the force which re 
mains." "But let us suppose that the fact is not only marvellous, 
but really miraculous ; and suppose that the testimony amounts 
to an entire proof (considered apart and by itself ;) in that case 
there is proof against proof, of which the strongest must prevail, 
but still with a diminution of its force, in proportion with that of 
its antagonist." 

" A miracle is a violation of the law of nature, and as a firm 
and unalterable experience has established that law, the proof 
against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire 
as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined^ 

"Nothing is a miracle that happens in the common course of 
nature. It is no miracle that a man seemingly in good health 
should die on a sudden, because such a kind of death has been 
frequently observed. But it is a miracle that a dead man should 
come to life, because that has never been observed in any age or 
country. There must therefore be a uniform experience against 
every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit 
that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a 
proof, there is here a direct and full proof from the nature of the 
fact against the existence of any miracle ; nor can such proof be 
destroyed or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite 
proof which is superior." Consequently, " No testimony is suffi- 
cient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such kind, 
that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact which 
it endeavors to establish." 

Such is Hume's argument, from which he concludes that " No 
testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle." 

The general principle of reasoning stated by Hume is not ma- 
terially objectionable ; but a fair use of that principle would not 
have served his purpose ; he there fore connected with it several 



72 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



gratuitous assumptions, by which an argument otherwise legiti- 
mate though inconclusive, has been converted into a mere soph- 
ism. He assumes by way of premise, that " a miracle has never 
been observed in any age or country" that the " uniform expe 
rience of mankind is against every miraculous event, otherwise 
it would not merit that appellation'^ — that is, the mere fact that 
an event has happened, proves that it deserves not the appellation 
of a miracle ; and on this assumption, he grounds the assertion, 
that " there is a direct and full proof from the nature of the fact 
against any miracle." 

What is all this but a mere begging of the question, an arbi- 
trary assumption of the matter in dispute? — "No testimony is 
sufficient to establish a miracle," is Hume's conclusion. What is 
the reason ? (we ask.) Because, (says the philosopher) no miracle 
has ever been observed, and no observed event can merit the ap- 
pellation of a miracle ! — Indeed ! (we may well exclaim) if so, 
the argument is at an end : that is the conclusion of the whole 
matter. Why infer anything about the insufficiency of testimony 
to prove what has never been observed, and what, from the na- 
ture of the fact, never can be observed ? When a philosopher 
can take it for granted that a thing is not and cannot be, — surely 
it is puerile in him to come forth triumphantly with the conclusion, 
that it cannot be proved. 

But Hume builds his argument upon the basis of experience. 
Let us see how he has managed to raise an insuperable barrier 
of experience against all possible testimony for miracles. 

He begins with each individual's personal experience. He says, 
i; When the fact is such as has seldom fallen under our observa- 
tion, here is a contest between two opposite experiences, of which 
the one destroys the other so far as its force goes, &c." What 
two experiences are those which he represents as coming in con- 
flict, when the fact is such as we have seldom observed? They 
are our positive and our negative experience in relation to the fact. 
For illustration, suppose that a neighbor of yours told you, that 
he had seen a man's leg broken by a fall from a scaffold. You 
had never perhaps seen precisely such an event, but you had seem 
we will suppose, one instance of a man getting his arm broken by 
a fall from his horse. Let this be your positive experience in re- 
spect to facts of that sort. It is something; but how small com- 
pared with your negative experience in relation to such events ! 
You had lived and observed the events of human life for years, 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 



and except in that single instance, you had never observed any- 
thing like the event which your neighbor reported as a fact. Now 
here according to Hume is a contest of opposite experiences, of 
which the one destroys the other so far as its force goes. But if 
negative experience has any force against positive, then in this 
case the vast preponderance of the negative must overwhelm the 
positive, and make your neighbor's report exceedingly improbable. 
— Would it have that effect on your mind or that of any sane 
man? Certainly not; for no rational man reasons in this man- 
ner from his personal experience. 

Our philosopher being aware that individual experience is too 
narrow a basis for his argument, makes a sly transition to the 
general experience of mankind, where he makes the assumption 
already mentioned, that no miracle has ever been observed, or in 
other words, that universal experience is against every miraculous 
event. But what I have to remark at present, is the fallacious 
manner in which he sets universal experience against testimony 
for miracles. He leaves out of view the fact, that we derive from 
testimony all our knowledge of what other men have experienced 
from the creation of the world to this day. Our personal expe- 
rience is but a drop in the ocean of universal experience. 

Now when he asserts that the uniform experience of mankind 
is against the occurrence of a miracle, if he means, as his lan- 
guage would imply, that all testimony is against miracles, the 
assertion is false, for there is much testimony in their favor ; or 
if he means that all the testimony that goes to establish the gen- 
eral regularity of nature is true, but that all, without exception, 
which goes to prove occasional deviations from that regularity, is 
necessarily false, then we demand a reason why the one should 
be true and the other wholly false. It cannot be, because they 
are contradictory testimonies, and therefore the strongest should 
prevail. If one man testify that he has seen fishes without eyes, 
and ten thousand men should testify that all fishes ever seen by 
them had eyes, there is no contradiction in the statements ; both 
may be true ; the general fact is, that fishes have naturally two 
eyes, but in particular cases they have none. Here is no contest 
between opposite experiences or opposite testimonies, as Hume 
sophistically pretends. Hence you can easily perceive the fallacy 
of his argument, when he says, " A miracle is a violation of the 
law of nature, and as a firm and unalterable experience has 
established that law. the 'proof against a miracle, from the 



74 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument can pos 
sibly be imagined" Here he assumes, artfully and sophistically, 
that all the proof by which the law of nature is established, 
lies in full force against the occurrence of a miracle : whereas, on 
the contrary, no miracle can occur where there is no law of na- 
ture ; for according to Hume's own definition, a miracle is a viola- 
tion of the law of nature. Be it so then, — that human experience 
proves the existence of the law of nature : we all admit the fact, 
— we must admit it before we can believe the occurrence of a 
miracle. Where there is no law there is no violation of a law ; 
where there is no rule there is no exception. Milton represents 
the chaos, or unformed elements of nature, to be full of wild hub- 
bub and confusion. No wonder ; chaos has no law, and none of 
its disorderly workings can be deemed miraculous. Now to repre- 
sent the experience which proves the law of nature as being an 
entire proof against a miracle, is exceedingly illogical ; for such 
experience, however firm and unalterable, it may be, is entirely 
consistent with any supposed experience of a miracle, which, 
" from the nature of the fact/' must be an exception to the general 
experience of mankind. 

The only condition on which experience can furnish any proof 
against a miracle, is, that it be opposed to the particular fact re- 
ported as a miracle. Thus, if one man testifies that, at a particu- 
lar time and place, he saw the sun miraculously darkened at noon- 
day ; and another man who was present at the same time and 
place, testifies that he saw no such thing, or only a natural obscu- 
ration of the sun by a cloud ; in such a case there is an opposition 
of reported experiences, of which those on the negative side may 
amount to full proof against the miracle. 

But Hume's argument assumes that a general negative experiV 
ence, or mere non-experience of a fact by mankind in general, 
amounts to an entire proof against its existence. On this princi- 
ple many facts of very rare occurrence are disproved by a firm 
and unalterable experience of the generality of mankind. So 
singular a phenomenon as the Siamese twins would be disproved 
by the experience of mankind ; so rare a phenomenon as the fall 
of meteoric stones from the atmosphere, would be incapable of 
positive proof, because the negative experience of nearly all man- 
kind has raised an insuperable barrier against its credibility. 

One more remark on this part of the argument will suffice. 
Though the experience to which Hume refers is merely negative 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



75 



in respect to miracles, it is positive, so far as it goes, in re- 
spect to the law of nature. I have already shown that this does 
not make it inconsistent with the supposition that a miracle 
has been experienced, but that, on the contrary, a miracle sup- 
poses a pre-existing law of nature. Yet there is a supposable 
case, in which positive evidence of the regular operation of the 
laws of nature would disprove the occurrence of a miracle in 
times past. If we knew from experience, or otherwise, that every 
event had come to pass heretofore in accordance with the laws of 
nature, then, of course, any supposed miracle would be inconsist- 
ent with our positive knowledge. So far must our knowledge of 
nature and of the events of time go, before Hume's argument 
from experience can have any validity. The moment you admit 
that our knowledge of events and of their causes is defective; 
that innumerable events have occurred of which we know noth- 
ing, and that many events have been observed to happen from 
causes unknown ; — that moment is it evident that human experi- 
ence does not, as Hume affirms, afford an entire proof, or any- 
thing like it, against the occurrence of a miracle. And you know 
this to be the fact. No living man or set of men are acquainted 
with the millionth part of those facts which the generations of 
mankind have experienced ; and of that very minute fraction of 
them, that we have ourselves observed, how many have resulted 
from causes of which we have no certain knowledge ! All this 
numerous class of contingent events may or may not have hap- 
pened in the regular course of nature. For aught that we know, 
some of them at least may have resulted from the interposition 
of Divine Providence, by which the natural course of things has 
been changed. Take an instance given by Hume : a man appa- 
rently in good health suddenly dies from a cause unknown. He 
says that this is no miracle, because it has been frequently ob- 
served. Certainly, we do not call it a miracle, but the true reason 
why we do not. is that we are ignorant of the cause. Did we 
know that according to the law of nature, the man would have 
lived for years, but that God killed him by a stroke of super- 
natural power, then it would be a miracle. Take another in- 
stance : a man apparently at the point of death from disease, 
recovers, we know not how nor why. Does experience of events 
like these and innumerable others of the like contingent nature, 
prove anything either positively for the uniformly regular opera- 
tion of the laws of nature 3 or n«o""* ; ' ely against occasional devia- 



76 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



tions by the act of God? Certainly not. But they do demon- 
strate conclusively, that experience — even common, every-day 
experience — raises no such insurmountable proof against mira- 
cles, as Hume pretends; and that, in fact, experience is not incon- 
sistent with the supposition, that the Deity does sometimes vary 
the course of nature for particular ends. But then, supposing 
that God does produce contingent events by controlling the course 
of nature, we do not recognize any event as miraculous unless it 
be manifestly contrary to the law of nature ; and as, for reasons 
before mentioned, such events must rarely occur, they are still so 
improbable as to require stronger proof than ordinary facts. 
Although negative evidence cannot amount to a proof, as Hume's 
argument assumes, it can, nevertheless, extend so far as to raise a 
strong presumption against a reported fact, and this it does in the 
case of miracles. 

Having thus disposed of the principal sophistries which Hume 
has wrought into the body of his argument, I come now to con- 
sider the principle from which the argument derives all its logical 
force. Had the skeptical philosopher made a legitimate use of 
the principle, unmixed with unwarrantable assumptions and other 
tricks of sophistry, in combating the testimony in favor of mira- 
cles, his argument, though inconclusive against the miracles of 
Christ, would have been fair and worthy of respectful consideration. 

He thus lays down the principle : "No testimony is sufficient to 
establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that 
its falsehood would be more miraculous [that is, more improbable,] 
than the fact which it endeavors to establish." 

This is a just principle. The improbability of a miracle must 
be overcome by proof, which must be stronger in proportion as the 
improbability is greater. That proof must, to those who are not 
eye-witnesses, be furnished by testimony. But human testimony 
is liabie to error and falsehood. Hence, it is only probable that a 
witness will tell the truth, and more or less probable according to his 
competency, his moral character, and the motives that operate on 
his mind m giving his evidence. Without some particular motive 
to falsify, all men will probably tell the truth, substantially at 
least. 

But, however lowly we may estimate the veracity of mankind in 
general, certain it is that testimony is susceptible of indefinite accu- 
mulation, by increasing the number of witnesses ; especially when 
the witnesses are of good cha/acter, and are competent to report 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



77 



correctly what they have observed. Still, however, the credibility 
of their testimony, in a particular case, will be weakened in pro- 
portion to the improbability of the fact to which they testify. 
Hence, to justify our belief of an improbable fact, we must judge 
the fact to be less improbable than the falsehood of the testimony ; 
and the degree of our belief will be stronger, as the weight of the 
testimony preponderates more strongly over the improbability of 
the fact. Hence, because a miracle is a very improbable sort of 
event, a firm faith in its occurrence ought not to be entertained 
without much stronger proof than is necessary in regard to ordi- 
nary facts. The testimony ought to be such, that its falsehood 
shall be decidedly more improbable than the fact itself. This is 
Hume's principle, and I adopt it in arguing against Hume's con- 
clusion, that " no testimony is sufficient to prove a miracle." 

The argument is now on the general question, whether or not 
a miracle is susceptible of proof by testimony. Hume denies it ; 
we affirm it. We take for granted, that a miracle is, from its 
nature, a very improbable sort of event, and that the testimony of 
man is fallible, yet capable of affording evidence, more or less, of 
any possible event. We have to determine, whether it can have 
sufficient weight to overcome the improbability of a miracle. 

I undertake to demonstrate that human testimony is susceptible 
of such a cumulative force, that it can overcome any assignable 
degree of improbability in the fact which it tends to establish. 

Before I proceed to analyze the force of testimony, let me call 
your attention to some familiar examples of its power to produce 
conviction against strong antecedent improbabilities. You know 
that we derive the far greater part of our knowledge from the 
reports of other men, that is, from testimony. All our belief in facts 
beyond the narrow sphere of our personal experience, is founded on 
testimony. Many of these facts are highly improbable, if we judge 
them by our own observation and experience. We shiver in the 
moderate cold of our winters, yet we firmly believe the men who 
report, that whole tribes of mankind live and enjoy life in an at- 
mosphere that freezes mercury. We know that the general mass 
of materials composing this globe is incombustible, yet we believe 
that mountains disgorge rivers of melted rocks, even amidst frozen 
oceans and glaciers of eternal ice. We know that masses of stone 
are with difficulty heaved a few yards into the air ; but we fully 
credit the reports of a few men who profess to have seen red-hot 
stones of considerable weigh; fall from the upper regions of the 



78 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

atmosphere, though we cannot imagine how they were projected 
to such a height, or whence they could have originated. When 
we consider the present state of the earth, and what we know of 
its living tribes, it is hard to believe that monstrous animals, four 
times as large as the elephant, should once have lived by tens of 
thousands in the frozen regions of Siberia ; yet we give our un- 
hesitating assent to the testimony of a few travellers, who declare 
that innumerable bones of such animals are found in the icy soil 
of that country. We also hold it for certain, on the testimony of 
men, that the skeletons of strange monsters of various kinds, have 
been found imbedded hundreds of feet deep in the solid rocks of 
this globe. And how improbable in themselves are the stories 
which travellers relate concerning the artificial wonders of Egypt ! 
What is Egypt but a narrow vale between immense deserts, 
where no rain falls, and where two or three millions of poor in- 
habitants draw subsistence from the mud of the Nile. Yet here 
do travellers pretend to have found the most stupendous monu- 
ments of human labor, that the world ever saw — the pyramids, 
the catacombs with their millions of mummies, and the ruins of 
Thebes. How could such structures and such excavations in solid 
rock, have been made by human hands in such a country? You 
wonder, and yet you believe with as firm a faith as if you had seen 
those unaccountable objects with your own eyes. And how much 
like a wild romance is that ancient story of Alexander of Macedon ? 
Can you believe that so petty a king, whose hereditary dominions 
were a small space between the mountains and the sea in a cor- 
ner of Europe, could have conquered Asia with 30,000 men ? — 
that he could have overthrown millions of soldiers, and crossed 
vast deserts, in his victorious march, from the Mediterranean sea 
to the Indian ocean? Yet although the story is more than 2000 
years old, and rests upon the authenticity of a few ancient records, 
every reading man has full confidence in its truth. You may never 
have seen the Alps, yet you easily believe on testimony that they 
are a mountain barrier, so high, so precipitous, so covered with 
perpetual ice and snow, that it is very difficult for travellers to 
cross, except by a modern road constructed with immense labor. 
What think you, then, was the feasibility of marching a great 
army across them in ancient times, when there was no road, 
when every valley and gorge was occupied by savage moun- 
taineers, ready to roll huge rocks from the precipices upon every 
invader? Yet on the authority of a few ancient historians, you 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 79 



believe that Hannibal led an African army of 60,000 men through 
those narrow gorges, up those frightful precipices, over those 
fields of ice, over those snowy peaks, and down again into the 
gulfs that led to fair Italy ; that he took with him not only his 
60,000 men, but all their provisions, forage, tents, arms, horses, 
and elephants — all, over a route where often even the experienced 
chamois-hunter would scarcely venture to climb. You have no 
doubt of these facts. 

Consider how absolutely certain you feel concerning innumera- 
ble facts, of which your knowledge is derived wholly from testi- 
mony, oral or written* Does anything appear more certain to 
you, and to all other intelligent men, than the existence of such 
a country as Japan, or the former existence and actions of such 
men as Christopher Columbus, Martin Luther, and Napoleon 
Bonaparte? But in respect to most facts that have come to your 
knowledge, and of which you feel indubitably certain, the testi- 
mony on which you rely is exceedingly indirect. Between you 
and the original witnesses are many intermediate reporters. Yet 
the man who should presume to deny these facts would be won- 
dered at as a curious specimen of the genus homo — a very pecu- 
liar sort of fool. 

The illustrations just given of the power of testimony to pro- 
duce a firm conviction of even the most improbable facts, are 
sufficient to show that belief in testimony is a law of our nature, 
and that no conceivable fact can be rejected as incredible, when 
the full power of testimony is brought to bear upon the mind. 

I now proceed to analyze the force of testimony, and to show 
how it is susceptible of indefinite augmentation, until it shall 
overcome the highest conceivable degree of improbability in the 
fact to which it is applied. 

In the first place, testimony may derive any degree of force 
from undesigned coincidence in the statements of different wit- 
nesses; who give independent testimony. 

Witnesses and their testimony are said to be independent when 
there is no previous concert or design by which the testimony of 
one witness is made to coincide with that of another. It is an 
evidence that the coincidence is undesigned, when the witnesses 
have not communicated with one another about the matter of 
their testimony. But this is not necessary to constitute inde- 
pendent testimony. It is sufficient that each witness tells his own 
story, without depending on the information or instruction of an- 



80 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



other as to what he shall testify. You have probably remaiked 
in the manner of witnesses, and in the matter and circumstances 
of their testimony, sufficient evidence that they spoke independ- 
ently from their personal knowledge of facts, and not from the 
promptings of another. But I need not explain by what means 
we may ascertain the independency of witnesses. It is enough 
for you to know that there are such witnesses, and that the coin- 
cidence of their testimony is not the result of concert or design. 
Then the coincidence can result only from chance, or from the 
truth of their testimony. We suppose that the facts of which 
they testify are of a contingent nature, and capable of being 
known as facts only from actual observation. 

Thus, if two men were to tell you independently that they 
had seen a certain man killed accidentally by the fall of a tree, 
it is evident that either the report is true, or they must by mere 
chance have hit upon the same falsehood. In proportion as it is 
improbable that such an undesigned coincidence in falsehood 
should occur, is it probable that the testimony is true, even though 
the witnesses were personally unworthy of credit. 

Now the more numerous the particulars in which these wit- 
nesses concur in their statements, the more improbable is it that 
the coincidence should have resulted from chance; not only so, 
but the improbability increases in a geometrical ratio, as the 
points of coincidence increase in number. Contingent events are 
infinitely diversified in time, place, and circumstances. Many 
men have been killed by the fall of trees, yet probably no two in- 
stances have coincided in all their circumstances. Two men might 
possibly feign or fancy an incident of this sort about the same 
time ; it is not impossible that they should happen to do it near the 
same place; nor will 1 pronounce it impossible that they should 
happen to tell this fiction of theirs to the same person, as a fact 
which they had seen. But you will allow that an undesigned 
coincidence, even to this extent, is exceedingly improbable. What 
would you say then if they agreed exactly in regard to the time 
and place of the accident, the sort of tree that fell, the cause of 
its fall, what sort of injury it inflicted on the man, &c. ? Would 
you not feel that it was morally impossible to attribute such a web 
of coincidences to chance? Hence, if it be granted that the wit- 
nesses were independent, you would say at once that the testi- 
mony must be true. 

I said that the degree of probability increased in a geometrical 



MIRACLES, AS AN" EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



81 



ratio as the points of coincidences increased in number. This is 
capable of mathematical demonstration; but I shall nci enter 
fully into this method of proof. I shall only illustrate the princi- 
ple sufficiently to make it intelligible. 

Suppose the two men referred to should happen to conceive the 
idea of telling the falsehood, that a certain man was killed : yet 
the chances we will suppose are only 100 to 1 against their 
happening to coincide in respect to the manner of his death by 
the fall of a tree. Then suppose they each invent for himself 
a place at which they will locate the accident, the chances are at 
least 1000 to 1 against their coinciding on this point. But the 
chances were 100 to 1 against their coinciding in the other, 
therefore the chances would be 100,000 to 1 against their coin- 
ciding in both at once. Now, suppose they consider, each for 
himself, what sort of tree he shall pitch upon as the cause of the 
man's death. Here the range of choice is limited ; say the chances 
are only three to one against their coinciding in this particular ; 
then the probability is, that they would coincide three times as 
often in the two former points as in all three at once. Therefore, 
the chances are 300,000 to 1 against their coinciding in all these 
three points. So, as they coincided in four, five or six, or more 
points, would the chances against the falsehood of their testimony 
be multiplied, until they amounted to a moral certainty that the 
testimony could not be false. 

But equally potent is an increase in the number of independent 
witnesses to multiply the chances against the falsehood of their 
testimony, or, what is the same thing, to multiply the degree of 
probability in favor of its truth. I supposed that when two men 
happened about the same time to invent a lie respecting a certain 
person's death, the chances were at least 100 to 1 against their 
both hitting upon so rare a cause of death as the fall of a tree. 
I have assumed too low a number, but let it stand. Now, sup- 
posing the very improbable case, that three men should at once, 
without concert, take it into their heads to fabricate a tale about 
the same person's death. We will leave out that improbability, 
and suppose that the three did chance to do this improbable thing, 
and that the chances were, as aforesaid, 100 to 1 against any two 
of them coinciding in respect to the cause of his death. Then it 
is evident that two of them would coincide in this particular 100 
times as often as all three would ; that is, the chances would be 
10,000 to 1 against their all coinciding at once. And so on 

6 



82 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



would we have to multiply the former results throughout, as we 
added witness after witness. You can easily conceive then that 
the power of testimony, considered merely as undesignedly coin- 
ciding, is practically unlimited, and capable of such accumulation, 
as to overcome any assignable degree of improbability in the fact 
to which such testimony is applied. 

Should any of the younger part of my audience not have as 
vet a clear conception of the grounds of this mathematical sort of 
reasoning on chances or probabilities, I can onty refer him to any 
good mathematician, or any good treatise on the subject, for a 
fuller explanation. No method of human reasoning is more 
certain in its results than this. The only room for error is in the 
numbers assumed to express the chances, or the degrees of proba- 
bility or improbability. The method of calculation is infallible; 
and I have given you a specimen of it merely to show how rap- 
idly the probabilities of truth are multiplied, as the points of coin- 
cidence and the number of the independent witnesses increase, 
and how soon they accumulate to such a degree of moral cer- 
tainty, as to overcome any conceivable degree of improbability in 
the nature of the fact. 

To illustrate the principle of this method of reasoning, I will 
propose to you some simple case, in which events are referred to 
what we call chance. Suppose for example, that you had before 
you a confused heap of printer's types, and you thrust your hand 
among them at haphazard, and drew out successively two types, 
with the design of spelling the little word so. Would you not 
probably have to make many trials before you succeeded in draw- 
ing the right letters in the right order? But suppose that you 
chose a word of three letters instead of two, as the monosyllable 
man. Consider how much the chances of failure would be mul- 
tiplied by this single addition of a letter ; how often you might 
hit the two first letters without hitting the third at the same time? 
So it is with coincidences when they result from chance. And 
then if two of you should try the same experiments together, how 
often might the one or the other succeed before both should suc- 
ceed at the same trial? So is it with independent testimony, when 
we increase the number of witnesses. How T often might one of 
them hit upon a particular set of circumstances w 7 hen he invented 
a lie, before both should hit upon them all at the same trial. 

I trust that I have sufficiently demonstrated the power of inde- 
pendent testimony to establish the most improbable sort of facts ; 

I 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



83 



and that too without respect to the moral character of the wit- 
nesses. 

In the second place, testimony derives force from the character 
of the witnesses, for veracity and competency ; and this too is 
susceptible of infinite accumulation. 

Men naturally tell the truth ; and although motives of interest 
and passion may lead them to swerve from it, sometimes, there 
is also implanted in the human breast a moral feeling which 
resists the motives to falsehood, and gives more or less weight to 
the testimony of honest men, even when they are tempted to 
utter a falsehood. Regard to reputation is another powerful 
check upon the motives to falsehood. A liar is one of the most 
infamous characters in society. Mankind feel the necessity of 
maintaining truth with one another. Therefore they brand the 
false witness as a dangerous character, and point at him with the 
finger of scorn. But nature prompts even liars to tell many more 
truths than falsehoods ; and nature and moral principle and re- 
gard to reputation combined, give a general character of truth to 
the testimony of mankind ; at least of substantial truth, even 
when interest or prejudice causes it to be somewhat disfigured. 

But men may err in their testimony through incompetency to 
observe and report correctly the facts of which they testify. Due 
allowance must be made for this in estimating the credibility of a 
witness. When the facts are simple and obvious to the senses, 
almost any man is competent to testify about them. He can tell 
what he plainly saw and heard and felt, though he may not be 
qualified to reason on the subject. 

To demonstrate that testimony may have force sufficient in the 
personal credibility of the witnesses, it is not necessary to assign 
to each witness a high degree of credibility. Let it only be prob- 
able that a witness will tell the truth, and the force of the testi- 
mony will, as in the former case, be multiplied by every additional 
witness. Let the probability be only as two to one, that a single 
witness will tell the truth ; then the probability will be as four to 
one that the testimony of two such witnesses, when they con- 
cur, is true ; — and so on the probability of truth will be doubled 
by each additional witness. But when the witnesses are honest, 
conscientious men, you will readily admit that the probable truth 
of their testimony is far greater. When such a man is not very 
powerfully tempted to swerve from the truth, you will allow that 
1000 to 1 is a very low estimate of the probable truth of his tes- 



84 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



timony. Then let two such witnesses concur, and the probability 
is a thousand thousands, or a million to one, that their testimony 
is true; and every additional witness of this character will multi- 
ply the probability a thousand-fold. Now suppose that twelve 
such witnesses concur ; if you calculate the force of their united 
testimony, it mounts up to an almost inconceivable quantity, — to 
a moral certainty of truth so powerful, that no degree of im- 
probability in the fact attested, can resist its force. Yet the num- 
ber of witnesses is supposed to be only twelve : what if it were 
a hundred or a thousand? 

Observe that we put the probability of truth in one scale of the 
balance, and the improbability of the fact in the other, as Mr. 
Hume directs ; and then give our judgment in favor of the side 
which preponderates. We must therefore allow the testimony its 
full weight independently of the nature of the fact ; taking care 
not to let the improbability of the fact itself detract anything from 
the testimony, until we put them into the scales. 

If any one should be at a loss to understand how the addition 
of one witness can in this case so multiply the force of the testi- 
mony, I ask his attention to this observation. When the question 
is whether a particular event has or has not occurred, if we can 
believe any one witness, who testifies that it has occurred, then 
we must consider the fact as established. All that we need, there- 
fore, to justify our belief of the fact, is to feel morally sure that 
one witness out of all who testify can be relied upon as true. Then 
it matters not whether we can rely upon the rest, or not ; for if 
any one tells the truth, then it follows that all who concur with 
him, also tell the truth in that case, though they should falsify in 
other cases. In this case, if one be true, all must be true ; and it 
is only on the supposition that all concur at once in the same 
falsehood, that their testimony can be discredited. 

From this observation, it may be easily understood, when wit- 
nesses are probably honest, how an addition to their number not 
only increases but multiplies the force of their testimony, because 
it multiplies the chances that some one among them can be 
relied on as a true witness, or what is the same thing, multi- 
plies the improbability that they should all concur in the same 
falsehood. 

I have now shown satisfactorily, I trust, that human testimony 
is susceptible of two sorts of force, each of which may be aug- 



MIRACLES, AS AN" EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 85 



mented to any extent necessary to overcome the improbability of 
any conceivable event. 

What shall we say, then, of the force of testimony, when it 
combines these elements of strength ; — when the force of unde- 
signed coincidence in the testimony is multiplied by the force of 
honesty and good faith in the witnesses 1 Yet these elements of 
strength may be, and often are, combined. How miserably dis- 
eased with skepticism must a man's intellect be, who can affirm, 
as Hume did, that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle • 

But I need not urge the force of testimony any further ; for this 
same skeptical philosopher, after elaborating an argument by 
which the force of all possible testimony for miracles was to be 
paralyzed, does in the same Essay give up the point, by admitting 
that the most stupendous miracle might be proved by the testi- 
mony of men ; — no less a miracle than this, namely, that at a 
certain time, ages ago, the sun was totally darkened for the space 
of eight days. If testimony might, as Hume says, have force 
enough to prove such an awful derangement in the course of 
nature, how much less would be sufficient to prove that a teacher 
sent from God had miraculously healed some diseased persons, and 
had himself risen from the dead? 

But whilst he thus concedes that testimony is of force to prove 
an unheard-of miracle, void of all moral use and signification, he 
resolves that religion shall not benefit by his concession, for he 
expressly excepts religious miracles as wholly incredible, because 
mankind have been often imposed on by stories of such miracles. 
He summarily disposes of religious miracles forever, by declaring 
that they ought to be universally rejected without examination. 
But if the frequency of imposture in relation to a class of facts be 
a sufficient reason for scouting the whole as incredible, then we 
ought to reject all reports of cures by medicine, because mankind 
are daily imposed on by the worthless nostrums of advertising 
quacks. 

And this, at last, is the result of Hume's Essay on Miracles, 
which has given so much trouble to writers on the Evidences of 
Christianity. After packing together a mixture of sound prin- 
ciples and miserable sophisms into the form of an infallible argu- 
ment against miracles, the author himself virtually abandons his 
argument, and falls back upon the last refuge of a despairing 
skeptic, — a resolution not to believe in Christianity, whatever may 
be its evidence, and to scout all religious miracles without exami- 



86 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



nation. This resolution shows that he found it very hard to dis- 
believe the miracles of Jesus Christ. 

II. I come now to the second head of the general subject, which 
is to consider the nature and the evidence of the mighty works 
ascribed to our Saviour Jesus Christ. I confine myself to these 
among all that are recorded in the Bible, in order, by simplifying 
the discussion, to reduce it to the narrow limits of a lecture ; nor 
is it necessary to go beyond them ; for these are obviously the test 
miracles, by which the Christian religion must, so far as its Divine 
authority is concerned, either stand or fall. 

First, then, let us examine the nature of these mighty works, 
and determine whether any of them were really miraculous or 
not. I say, any of them, because even one undoubted miracle is 
sufficient to prove the Divine interposition, and to establish the 
doctrines of the great teacher. The certainty, also, that one or a 
few were real miracles, will also determine the nature of those 
which, if considered by themselves, might be in some degree ques- 
tionable. 

In determining the nature of the mighty works ascribed to 
Jesus Christ, we must take the facts as they are related in the 
evangelical records ; for we are not considering whether those 
facts actually occurred, but whether, supposing them to have occur- 
red, they were really miraculous or not. 

In respect to some of them, it is easy to determine that they 
could not have resulted from natural causes : they must, there- 
fore, have been miraculous. Of this sort was Christ's walking 
upon the sea (Matt. xiv. 25) ; his feeding thousands with a few 
small loaves and fishes (Matt. xiv. 15.) ; his giving sight to a man 
born blind by the application of clay moistened with spittle (John 
ix.) ; his raising Lazarus from the tomb (John xi.), and his own 
resurrection from the dead and visible ascent to heaven. 

Next to these is a sort of cases, which, if taken singly, are not 
demonstrably supernatural, but when taken collectively and in 
connection with the circumstances, must also be considered as un- 
questionably miraculous. Of this sort are the numerous cases in 
which Christ instantaneously healed men of diseases, which were 
almost, if not quite incurable by natural means, — such as inveter- 
ate leprosies, palsies, epilepsies, lunacy, &c. (Matt. viii. Luke v. 
Mark v. John v.) Admitting that in some rare instances, persons 
deeply affected with such diseases, might naturally recover, I 
think that you will esteem it impossible for any man without 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 87 



miraculous power to effect instantaneously many cures of this sort 
in succession, and without a failure, as often as the patients pre- 
sented themselves. What I have to say on a third sort of cases 
will apply with additional force to these also, and remove any 
douht that may linger in your minds. 

In the third sort of cases, the events were such as might pro- 
ceed from natural causes, and the only evidence of their miracu- 
lous character, consisted in the circumstances and manner of their 
production. Such was the sudden fall of the wind on Lake Tibe- 
rias, when Jesus commanded it to cease (Matt. viii. 18). The 
recovery of patients from ordinary diseases without the application 
of remedies, as in the case of Simon Peter's mother-in-law. who 
was ill of a fever (Luke iv. 38). Into this class I also put the 
cases of Jairus's daughter and the widow's son, who were resusci- 
tated after apparent death (Luke viii. 41, Luke vii. 11, 12). For 
although cases of revival after apparent death are rare, yet as 
they do sometimes occur from natural causes, the mere occurrence 
of the fact is no evidence of a miracle. 

But whilst events of this sort are not necessarily miraculous, 
neither are they necessarily the result of natural causes. The 
most common sort of event is miraculous, when it happens out of 
the regular course of nature, — when the cause on which it naturally 
depends is wanting, and its occurrence can be accounted for only 
on the supposition of a supernatural cause. A gust of wind may 
suddenly blow over, — a sick man may regain his health, and a blind 
man may recover his sight; and a man after lying breathless for 
hours may return to life ; and though the cause may be unknown, 
yet the circumstances of the case may give no indication of a 
miracle. Before a miracle can be inferred, there must be a sign 
of supernatural agency. What was the sign in these cases? It 
was the wonderful coincidence between certain acts of Jesus and 
the events which immediately followed. According to the law of 
nature, the acts of Jesus could not have produced such effects ; yet 
the events sprang forth instantaneously, as the effect springs from 
the cause, and quite as certainly and regularly as if all had occur- 
red in the ordinary course of nature. A storm agitates the waters 
and threatens to overwhelm the frail boat in which Jesus lies 
asleep. He is wakened with the fearful cry, Lord save, or we 
perish ! He rises, and commands the winds to be still. Instantly 
there is a great calm. A woman lies ill of a great fever. Jesus 
happens to arrive at the house, and seeing her condition, he takes 



88 MIRACLES. AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



her by the hand and rebukes the disease : the fever flies at his 
command, the woman rises and attends to her household duties as 
usual. A blind man happens to meet with Jesus and begs for the 
restoration of his sight. Jesus touches his eyes, immediately the 
film that had for years drawn its dark curtain over them is dispel- 
led, and the world again flashes upon his sight. At another time 
Jesus happens to meet a funeral procession, attended with extraor- 
dinary lamentation and woe ; he learns that a heart-broken widow 
is following the dead body of her only son to the tomb. He orders 
the bier to be stopped ; he uncovers the corpse, and commands the 
dead to rise. Immediately the current of life resumes its flow, 
the pale cheek reddens, the lungs breathe, the eyes open, the 
limbs move, the soul resumes its tabernacle of clay, and the poor 
widow embraces her recovered son. 

Such a coincidence between the word of a man, and the forth- 
coming of an event, — between the command of a mortal and the 
obedience of nature, — if it happened once would be deemed ex- 
traordinary ; if twice in succession, wonderful ; if ten times or a 
hundred times without a failure, certainly miraculous. And justly 
would it so appear ; for although such a coincidence might once 
or possibly twice occur by chance ; yet that it should continue to 
happen regularly a dozen and even hundreds of times, is a sure 
indication of supernatural power. 

If further proof were required that such coincidences could not 
be accidental, it could easily be afforded by reducing the argu- 
ment to a mathematical form, as I did when discussing the force 
of testimony. Take for instance the case in which the wind 
ceased at the command of Jesus. A violent gust of wind in full 
blast might chance to fall on a sudden when a man uttered a 
command that it should ; but you will admit this to be so improba- 
ble, that it could not be expected to happen oftener than one time 
in a hundred. So a high fever, as it does, though very rarely, 
happen to cease all at once without apparent cause, might possi- 
bly happen once in a thousand times to do so at the moment when 
a certain man called at the house and rebuked the disease. If we 
assume these numbers as correctly expressing the improbability 
of the two coincidences taken singly, then it would follcw that 
the two could happen in succession only once in a hundred thou- 
sand times that the trial should be made. If we suppose again 
that a person who has been for hours apparently dead, would 
chance to revive at the moment when a certain man met the fu- 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 89 

neral procession and commanded the dead to rise, as often as once 
in ten thousand times ; then compounding this case with the other 
two, the three would not successively occur by chance oftener 
than once in ten thousand times one hundred thousand times ; 
that is once in a thousand millions of times. Such then is the 
degree of improbability that lies against the supposition of acci- 
dental coincidence in only three out of hundreds of similar cases 
recorded or alluded to in the Gospels. How then can any man 
imagine that all these cases should be the result of accidental co- 
incidence between the acts of our Saviour and the apparently 
miraculous effects that immediately followed? 

Had Jesus failed in many instances or even in a few, when he 
attempted to produce such wonderful effects, the argument would 
lose much of its force, but as not a single failure appears to have 
occurred, we must reject the hypothesis of accidental coincidence 
as utterly absurd. 

But there is another, which may be reasonably applied to many 
reported cases of miraculous healing, and which deserves there- 
fore to be respectfully considered in the present argument. 

The hypothesis is that the faith and imagination of the pa- 
tient, often have a wonderful effect upon the disease, and some- 
times produce a cure when ordinary remedies fail. 

This is true, and what seems to give the hypothesis more appli- 
cability to the miraculous cures related in the Gospels, is that 
Jesus often required faith in his power to heal, as a condition on 
which he would undertake the cure (Matt. viii. 10 ; ix. 22. Mark 
x. 52). 

But however plausible this hypothesis may at first sight appear, 
a little examination will prove that it cannot throw even a doubt 
upon the miraculous nature of our Saviour's mighty works. 

It may sufficiently account for some extraordinary cures per- 
formed among superstitious people, by faith in the relics of a dead 
saint, or in the prayers of some austere fanatic, believed to have 
miraculous power ; — but in reference to the miracles of Christ, it 
is either inapplicable, or where applicable yet inadequate to solve 
the phenomena. 

In many of Christ's miracles, faith and imagination could have 
no effect, as when Christ himself "walked the waves," — when he 
multiplied the loaves and fishes in the wilderness, — when he raised 
the unconscious dead, and when he was himself raised from the 
dead. And in manv cases in which the subiect of the miracle 



90 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



could exercise faith, the effect was too great and too sudden to be 
ascribed to this cause. How could faith suddenly dispel the cat- 
aract from a blind man's eyes, or instantaneously infuse perfect 
health and vigor into the half-dead members of a bed-ridden 
paralytic 7 

Respecting the healing power of faith and imagination, :* should 
be observed that it operates by producing strong emotions, by 
which the vital energy is increased and salutary effects are often, 
but not always produced. As most medicines are liable to failure, 
so it is with faith as a curative agent. In some cases it effects a 
complete cure either speedily or slowly ; in others it produces only 
partial and temporary relief; and in others again it wholly fails 
to benefit the patient. Some diseases too are beyond the reach 
of its influence. 

Now the fact, according to the gospel narrative, that in every 
case and in every sort of ailment, the cure was immediate and 
perfect, demonstrates that the cures ascribed to Jesus Christ could 
not have been effected by any degree of faith or any workings of 
the imagination in those who were healed : and the additional fact 
that in not a few cases, no faith or fancy could operate at all, is 
conclusive evidence, that if the gospel narrative be true, Christ 
did possess miraculous power, and to this power alone should we 
ascribe all his mighty works. 

But if so, why did he in some instances require faith in those 
upon whom he exercised his healing power ? This may, I think, be 
reasonably accounted for without supposing that he depended in 
any case on the patient's faith for his ability to effect a cure. 

Many of his works were intended, not merly to prove his Divine 
mission, but to teach moral lessons of the highest importance. 
There is an obvious analogy between the nature of his miracles 
and the object of his mission. His miracles were works of salva- 
tion ; his mission was to save sinners. His works of Divine 
power were illustrations of Divine mercy. He manifested his 
power to redeem men from their iniquities by redeeming them 
from the evils of mortality. But whilst he could save their lives 
and restore their health by a physical operation on their bodies, 
he could save their souls only by a moral operation upon their 
spiritual nature through the medium of faith. To inculcate the 
necessity of faith in him as the Saviour of the soul, he also 
required that applicants for his healing power should profess their 
confidence in his ability to save them from disease and death. 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRIS HANITY. 



91 



This was conformable to his usual mode of teaching. He made 
all the incidents of his ministry and all the occurrences of life the 
means of conveying moral instruction. He required faith of those 
who came to him for health and life, because he also required 
faith of those who should come to him for salvation from spiritual 
disease and death. 

No more needs be said to prove that the mighty works ascribed 
to Jesus Christ were real miracles. If these works or any of 
them were truly reported by the evangelists, then they afford 
evident signs of the Divine mission of our Saviour, and of the 
Divine authority of his gospel. 

But before we can reasonably believe the gospel on this evidence, 
we must have satisfactory proof of the authenticity and substan- 
tial truth of the evangelical records in which these miracles are 
related. I say, their substantial truth ; for if we have reason to 
believe that Christ wrought any such miracles as are recorded in 
the Gospels, we shall have sufficient ground of belief in his Divine 
mission, although the Gospels should appear to contain the usual 
portion of error to which historical records are subject. 

I come now in the last place to investigate the proof on which 
our belief in the miraculous power and Divine mission of Jesus 
Christ is founded. The question is, Have we sufficient evidence 
of the substantial truth of the evangelical records to overcome 
the intrinsic improbability of the miraculous events which they 
relate 7 

The amount of evidence required will depend on the degree of 
improbability to be overcome. According to the theoretical prin- 
ciples laid down in the former part of this discourse, a miracle is 
necessarily an improbable event, and requires for its establishment 
a greater amount of proof than a common event, and so much 
the greater as the nature and circumstances of the miracle render 
it more improbable. But we must observe that in this case the 
amount of proof needs not to be augmented in proportion to the 
number and variety of miracles ascribed to Jesus Christ ; for you 
will readily admit that if he had power to work miracles at all, he 
could as easily work many as few, and great miracles as small ; 
because when the Divine power interposes to produce supernatural 
events, we readily understand that some great occasion has arisen, 
and that God will probably multiply and vary his signs, so as to make 
them evident to the senses and understanding of all observers. 
Also by exhibiting them at divers times and places, and in a vari- 



92 



MIKACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



ety of forms, they would be more susceptible of proof and Detter 
fulfil the great design for which they were exhibited. Hence, the 
improbability of Christ's miracles is rather diminished than in- 
creased by the number and variety of those ascribed to him. 

Further to estimate the degree of their improbability, we ought 
to consider the professed object for which the Deity was said to 
have interposed, the character of the person through whom he 
was said to have wrought miracles, the doctrines which that 
person professed to confirm by signs from God, the sort of mirac- 
ulous signs which he is supposed to have exhibited, and any other 
circumstances by which a reasonable man could judge what degree 
of improbability should be assigned to the facts for which testi- 
mony is adduced. 

What then is the object for which God is supposed to have en- 
dowed Jesus Christ with miraculous power? No less an object 
than this, to introduce a new and holy religion for mankind 
through the agency of his own Son, who was to confirm it and 
render it efficacious by the sacrifice of himself; and by which 
mankind might be saved from the errors of idolatry, the preva- 
lence of sin, and the ignorance under which they labored respect- 
ing their future destiny. Surely, if ever the Father of mankind 
should exhibit in this world the miraculous tokens of a revelation 
from himself, it would be for an object like this, — to bring life and 
immortality to light,- — to disperse the dark clouds of superstition, 
and open to his erring and sinful creatures the pathway to peace 
on earth and glory in heaven. 

And what sort of person was he, through whom, as the Gospels 
tell us, these miraculous signs were given, and this revelation of 
light and mercy was sent? Do they so represent his character 
and actions, as to make it credible that he should be honored 
with this Divine mission and endowed with miraculous power ? 

According to the programme of this course of lectures, another 
has assigned to him the delightful task of portraying the character 
of Jesus of Nazareth. Suffice it to say here that by the acknowl- 
edgment even of infidels, if ever a human being was worthy to 
represent the moral majesty and goodness of our Father in heaven, 
the Jesus of the gospel is that man ; who without the vain pomp, 
and glory of the world, or any circumstance which could dazzlt, 
to blind, presents a character so morally pure, so humanly amia- 
ble, and yet so divinely great, that neither the examples of his- 
tory, nor the ideal portraitures of genius, have ever exhibited his 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 9? 



parallel. With a soul as gentle as the dews that fell upon Mount 
Hermon, all melting- with pity for the sorrows of humanity, all 
forgetful of self, and regardless of worldly applause and pomp 
and power, he possessed a fortitude which nothing could break, — 
a patience which nothing could exhaust, — a zeal for the cause of 
God, which glowed like a star of heaven, a philanthropy which 
could sacrifice both honor and life for the welfare of man, — and 
withal a heaven-taught wisdom which confounded the subtlety 
of lawyers and scribes, separated the good from the bad in religion 
and morals, and produced a system of doctrines, worthy to have 
emanated from God whose glory they display, and worthy to be 
accepted by man, who, if he would hope for heaven's bliss, must 
find it through the religion of Jesus Christ, or despair of it forever : 
for if such a teacher as Christ, and such principles of piety and 
morality as he taught cannot guide us aright, — then where — oh 
where in all the earth shall we look for a heaven-taught " Guide 
to everlasting life through all this gloomy vale ?" 

What shall we say then? Does the character of Jesus Christ 
— does the religion which he taught — reflect discredit upon the 
miraculous power ascribed to him? Is there anything in the 
miracles of mercy recorded in the evangelical histories — any in- 
congruity, any want of dignity, any sign of imposture, or any 
circumstance whatsoever, that should make them either intrinsi- 
cally or circumstantially more improbable than miracles must of 
necessity be? May I not, on the contraiy, affirm, that of all the 
reported miracles in the annals of the world, those ascribed to 
Jesus Christ are in their nature and their circumstances the least 
improbable, and therefore require the least amount of proof to 
render them credible? 

But do not mistake my meaning. I do not offer the character 
of Christ and of his doctrines as affording any proof whatsoever 
of his miraculous power or of the truth of Christianity. My 
present object is not to prove his miracles, but to estimate in a 
general way the degree of improbability attached to them, and 
consequently the amount of proof requisite to overcome that im- 
probability and to justify our belief of his Divine mission. In 
the first part of my lecture, in which I discussed the theory of the 
subject, I showed that all reported and all conceivable miracles 
are not equally improbable. The degree of their improbability 
varies according to the nature, the circumstances and the occa- 
'on. I leave it now to your candid judgment to determine 



94 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



whether the miracles ascribed to Jesus Christ be mere or less im- 
probable than the generality of those which have been reported 
in ancient and in modern times. 

I come now to consider the evidence by which the miracles of 
Christ are supported. 

Not having witnessed them ourselves, we must rely upon the 
testimony of others who professed to have been eye-witnesses. 
But as Jesus Christ lived upwards of 1800 years ago, we have to 
rely upon written documents for all the facts. All the evidence 
is to us historical. The great distance at which we are separated 
from the original witnesses of " what Jesus did and taught," may 
seem to weaken the evidence so much as to make it inadequate 
to prove a miracle. But notwithstanding the wide interval of 
time, we are in fact within a step or two of the original testimony. 
A single step takes us back about 1800 years to the publication 
of the New Testament records, especially to the four evangelical 
histories of Jesus Christ, purporting to have been written partly 
by eye-witnesses of his acts, and partly by contemporaries who 
professed to derive their information from original witnesses. 

The first step is to ascertain the authenticity of these records. 
This being done, we have reached the testimony of the original 
witnesses : then the only remaining question will be, Has their 
testimony sufficient force to overcome the improbability of the 
miraculous facts which they profess to have witnessed? 

Respecting the authenticity of the evangelical records, I must 
pass it over with a brief remark or two, because I have not time 
to discuss it, and because that will be done by another lecturer 
from whom you doubtless will hear a satisfactory argument on 
the subject. I will only remark, that, according to all accounts in 
every age, from the first century downwards to this day, the foul 
gospels and most of the other books of the New Testament were 
considered on all hands as being genuine documents of apostolica. 
times, and as containing true accou its of what the apostles and 
other primitive Christians reported concerning the acts and doc- 
trines of Jesus Christ. 

I shall take it for granted, therefore, not only that the twelve 
Apostles who first preached the gospel, professed to be eye-witness- 
es of what Jesus did and taught, but also that we have in the 
New Testament a substantially correct account of what they and 
other primitive Christians testified respecting Jesus Christ. 

But before we consider the credibility of these original wit- 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



95 



nesses, we must remove an objection which infidels have fre- 
quently urged against the evangelical records of their testimony. 
No one pretends to dispute the sufficiency of these records to es- 
tablish a number of leading facts. Few even of the French infi- 
dels have denied that such a man as Jesus of Nazareth lived 
and taught and was crucified ; and that twelve men called his 
apostles professed to have witnessed his mighty works and his 
resurrection from the dead ; and that on the strength of their tes- 
timony they did with much labor and suffering make many con- 
verts and found many churches in different countries, and that 
the four Gospels are authentic records of what was reported among 
Christians in apostolical times respecting the life and miracles of 
Jesus. 

So far there is no dispute worth noticing between believers and 
unbelievers in the Divine mission of Christ. But the unbelievers 
object to the four evangelists, that they disagree in their state- 
ments, and as two of them were apostles, and the other two were 
companions of apostles, the inference is that the twelve apostles 
disagreed in their testimony, and are therefore unworthy of 
credit. 

The truth of the matter is this : when we compare the foui 
evangelists we find a general and substantial agreement in all 
their narratives; but they differ in several respects. 

1. Some relate facts which others wholly omit : this argues no 
disagreement, since none of them profess to relate all the facts 
relative to their subject. 

2. They differ somewhat in the order of the facts related : but 
neither does this argue anything to their discredit, since they 
do not profess to give those facts in the order in which they oc- 
curred. 

3. In their account of the same facts, not only does one relate 
circumstances which another omits — as the most veracious wit- 
nesses and narrators are apt to do — but in a few instances they 
relate the same circumstances differently. Thus for example, in 
their accounts of the Saviour's resurrection, whilst they agree 
fully in regard to every material fact, they relate several of the 
circumstances differently. Take one of them as an illustration 
of the whole. Whilst they all agree that Jesus rose from the 
tomb early in the morning, and that Mary Magdalene came early 
to the tomb and discovered that he was not there, yet they differ 
as to the precise time of her coming. Matthew says that she 



96 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



came when the day began to dawn ; — Mark says that she arrived 
there at sunrise ; — Luke says less definitely that it was " very 
early in the morning- — and John says that it " was yet dark.' 
Such are the variations of the evangelists in regard to this cir- 
cumstance : and what is the amount of discrepance amcng them? 
I answer, Little or nothing : for if you suppose that John by 
its being yet dark meant a dusky twilight, and that Mark by 
"sunrise" meant a clear twilight, such as occurs when the sun's 
rays first touch the high mountains, and then allow for the time 
that Mary Magdalene was on the way, perhaps a mile in length, 
and surely there is nothing here over which a man should blow 
the trumpet of infidelity. And as to. the other circumstance, that 
John mentions Mary Magdalene alone on this occasion, and that 
the others mention another Mary as having gone with her, it is 
merely an instance of omission by one evangelist of what another 
mentions. Mary Magdalene was the one to whom alone Jesus 
showed himself on that occasion : therefore John names her alone 
in his account of the matter. 

These variations in the evangelical histories, instead of invali- 
dating, serve rather to confirm the substantial truth of their nar- 
ratives ; for they show that the authors did not copy from one 
another, but wrote independently and drew their information from 
independent sources. Who does not know that the most truthful 
witnesses, when they testify what they have observed respecting 
the same event, always differ in the same manner in their state- 
ments. An exact agreement in every particular would raise a 
strong presumption that they borrowed of one another, instead of 
giving independent testimony. 

There is no reason, therefore, to doubt that we have in the four 
evangelists a substantially true report of what the twelve apostles 
testified respecting the life and miracles of Jesus Christ. The sim- 
ple, unaffected, truthful manner in which they tell the wonderful 
story, adds no little to their credibility. And finally, as no other or 
contradictory account of what the apostles preached has ever been 
heard of among ancient records or traditions, I feel authorized to 
assume that we have the recorded testimony of the apostles in the 
New Testament. I may also assume that we have there a sub- 
stantially true history, so far as it goes, of what the apostles did 
and suffered as witnesses for Christ, as well as what they testified 
respecting his doctrine and miracles. 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



97 



Let us now consider what credit is due to their testimony as 
competent, as honest, and as independent witnesses. 

First, then, were they competent to give us a correct account of 
such miraculous events as we find recorded in the Gospels 1 Were 
they sufficiently intelligent, accurate, and cautious observers to 
raise them above the suspicion of having been deluded, either by 
the arts of another, or by their own stupid credulity? 

They were, it is true, but simple and unlearned men, they had 
nothing of the philosopher or the skeptic about them, but they 
were, nevertheless, as their own candid writings, and the writings 
of others about them, plainly show, men of good, sober, common 
sense ; on some points rather hard to convince, especially in re- 
gard to the great miracle on which the truth of Christianity 
mainly depends, that is, the resurrection of their crucified master. 
There is nothing that indicates a want of competency on their 
part to observe and report with accuracy such facts as are record- 
ed in the Gospels. 

Be it observed, that we do not depend on their testimony for 
anything but simple facts, open to the senses, and requiring 
nothing but the sober senses and common memory of mankind to 
observe and to report. Give us these and we can judge for our- 
selves, whether there was any fraud in the exhibition, or any mir- 
acle in the facts exhibited. 

Let us take for illustration, the case of the paralytic, of which 
we have an account in the 2d chapter of Mark. What were the 
facts and circumstances that presented themselves to the witness- 
es? Simply these: when Jesus is preaching to a crowded house 
in Capernaum, four men come to the place, bearing a helpless 
paralytic on a bed. Unable to press in through the dense crowd, 
they have to mount the low roof of the house and to let their 
patient down before the feet of Jesus, and consequently also in full 
view of many who were present. " When Jesus saw their faith, 
he said to the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." 
Some scribes were sitting there, who inwardly charged him with 
blasphemy, in assuming the Divine prerogative of forgiving sins. 
Jesus then put the question to them, 11 Whether is it easier to say 
to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, 
Arise, take up thy bed and walk." Then he commanded the 
patient to rise, take up his bed and go home, and (says Mark) 
immediately he arose, took up his bed. and went forth before them 

7 



98 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



all ; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, say- 
ing. We never saw it in this fashion. 

Such were the facts of the case, according to the testimony of 
the witnesses. Could not a fisherman observe and relate those 
facts as truly and as accurately as a philosopher ? We care not 
how the witnesses reasoned about them. Let us know ail the 
material facts — all that they saw and heard, and we can do the 
reasoning for ourselves; and thus it is, that like a lawyer before a 
court, I argue that the witnesses in this case could not have been 
deluded in respect to what they saw and heard ; for the facts 
were as plain and evident to the senses as any in the world, and 
were exhibited in open day before a throng of spectators almost 
touching the paralytic, and some of them scribes, disposed to 
watch and find fault with every act of Jesus. Nor can we pre- 
sume that they were imposed on by a pretended paralytic. He 
was no doubt a man of the same town, known to some of those 
present. His looks and actions would also have betrayed him, 
had he attempted a deception. Had Jesus undertaken to delude 
people with a false paralytic and a false cure, he would not have 
chosen to try the experiment in open day before such a crowd of 
witnesses, and in a town where, according to the evangelists, he 
had many enemies. 

Whether the cure was miraculous or not, every one may judge 
for himself. All that we want from the witnesses are the facts as 
they occurred. The apostles were surely competent to give them. 
Therefore no objection can lie against the witnesses on the score 
of competency. 

The next question is in respect to their honesty or disposition 
to tell the truth. This is the main point. If we can rely upon 
the conscientious veracity of the apostles, their testimony respect- 
ing plain, simple matters of fact, like those just mentioned respect- 
ing the cure of the paralytic, must have great weight. 

We must judge of the honesty of the apostles, as we judge of 
all ancient men, — that is, by their actions as recorded in history, 
by their writings and speeches, by the opinions of those who knew 
them, and by circumstances from which something may be inferred 
concerning them. In one way or another, we have, I think, all the 
evidence necessary to enable us to form a well-grounded judgment 
of the apostles. 

And first, I may assert, negatively, that there is no evidence of 
any sort that tends to convict the apostles of dishonesty, worldly 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 99 

ambition, hypocrisy, deceit, covetousness, or any base or selfish 
design in their labors as missionaries of Jesus Christ. All the evi- 
dence that we have, goes to establish their sincerity and disinter- 
estedness. Their own writings, and all that others wrote of them 
in their own time and country, bear them witness that they fully 
believed Jesus Christ to be the Son of God and Saviour of the 
world, and that they believed it on the evidence of his miracles 
wrought in their presence, and especially on the evidence of his 
resurrection from the dead. 

Let us consider for a moment this miraculum cruris, this deci- 
sive miracle of the resurrection, as affording the most natural 
solution of the conduct of the apostles, and the best criterion of 
their moral character. 

Ask yourselves the question, Did the apostles believe that Jesus 
died on the cross and rose again, or did they not? Then reason 
on each supposition, — that they did, and that they did not 
believe so, — and see which of the two will enable you to account 
most rationally for their conduct. Suppose, first, that they did 
believe what they published to Jews and Gentiles at the expense 
of so much labor and suffering, and at the frequent hazard of 
their lives ; then if they were sincere good men, seeking the 
glory of God and the salvation of mankind, how natural was 
their conduct, how probable was all that others wrote of them ! 
How consistent with nature and with truth are the style and 
matter of their own writings ! How easily understood the origin 
and the institutions of the church ? 

But again, suppose that they did not believe their own story of 
the death and resurrection of Christ, then, how can you solve the 
problems that instantly present themselves? The voluntary 
labors and privations of the apostles ; their unshaken constancy, 
their indomitable fortitude, the unwavering consistency of their 
testimony ; and amidst occasional differences about personal mat- 
ters, their enduring co-operation to the last in fulfilling their high 
commission, and establishing the great truth, that Jesus Christ 
died for our sins, and rose again. If they believed not their own 
statements, then they were wilful liars, and unprincipled impos- 
tors : in that case they must have acted from a selfish motive ; 
they must have promised themselves some personal advantage ; 
But what motive? What advantage? How can you account 
for their conduct? Yet their conduct must have been such as 
the New Testament represents it ; or how can you account for 



100 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the existence of the church, and the doctrines and institutions 
that have come down to us from the age of the apostles? 

And do you not feel the force of St. Paul's reasoning in the 15th 
chapter of 1st Corinthians ; which is directly to the point of our 
argument? "I delivered unto you first of all that Christ died 
for our sins, — that he was buried, — that he rose again, — that he 
was seen of Cephas (Peter), then of the twelve apostles, and after 
that of above 500 brethren at once ; after that he was seen of 
James, and then again of all the apostles."' So Paul reasons about 
the fact of the resurrection. Then he reasons about the motives 
of those who preached this fact, "If Christ be not risen, then is 
our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain : yea, and we are 
found false witnesses of God ; because we have testified of God 
that he raised up Christ." He adds another consideration. "If 
in this life only we (apostles) have hope in Christ, we are of all 
men most miserable." And so they were among the most miser- 
able of mankind ; they sacrificed the present life to propagate a 
lie, without a hope of the life to come. So they felt, and so they 
reasoned ; and who can deny either the force of their reasoning, 
or the sincerity of their belief, that Christ had risen from the dead, 
and become the first-fruits of them that slept ? 

And with such evidence as these twelve men alleged for the 
death and resurrection of Christ, — the evidence of their senses 
fortified by the evidence of many others, — who could doubt ? or 
who could be mistaken ? The same men affirmed that they had 
witnessed the miracles which Christ wrought during the years of 
his ministry, and that they were themselves endowed with miracu- 
lous gifts of the Holy Ghost, as a confirmation of their testimony. 
If they lied in regard to the one fact of the resurrection, so they 
did in regard to all the rest ; so that if they were not honest wit- 
nesses, they were thorough-paced liars, full of all hypocrisy and de- 
ceit, and utterly destitute of moral principle. In such a case there 
is no medium. They cannot be considered as well-meaning en- 
thusiasts acting under a delusion ; nor as a compound of the self- 
deluded enthusiast and the wilful impostor, who, believing his ends 
to be good, believes that he may promote them by pious frauds. 
Such characters have often appeared, but such the apostles could 
not have been. The whole body of their ends and views was 
founded on the miraculous facts which they professed to have wit- 
nessed, and if these were false, all was false and wicked. Ma- 
homet was a saint compared with these unscrupulous, untiring, 



MIRACLES, AS AN" EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



101 



unblushing-, insane, propagators of lies concerning Jesus Christ ; 
— lies which they invented to impose on mankind for no con- 
ceivable end of advantage to themselves or to others ; — lies 
which they solemnly affirmed in the name of God to be facts wit- 
nessed by themselves. How base, how thoroughly depraved must 
these twelve apostles have been, if they were not honest men ! 
Yes, the whole twelve, without a single exception, were thoroughly 
base and unprincipled. No bandits were ever more dishonest. 

But on the supposition that they were such abominable liars 
and hypocrites, several circumstances are unaccountable. 

How shall we account for it, that these lying apostles and hy- 
pocritical reprobates should have devised and propagated a reli- 
gion supereminently holy and benevolent? — That such unprin- 
cipled impostors should have set forth, as the Saviour of the 
world, a character of such purity and loveliness as that of Jesus 
Christ?— That in everything except their falsehoods about mir- 
acles, they should appear, in all they did and all thej^ said and 
wrote, to have been simple-hearted, good men, haters of every- 
thing false, deceitful, or any way dishonest? — That they should 
have pointedly condemned all pious frauds, — that is, the practice 
of doing evil that good may come, and of promoting the glory of 
God by falsehood and deception?* 

And then if these men were lying impostors, how strange is it 
nat in all that we read of them, especially in their own writings, 
ve should see such numerous and evident tokens of the artless 
simplicity of their character, and such unmistakable signs of 
unaffected zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of men, and 
in their writings, such ardent outpourings of the heart, as could 
spring only from a deep conviction of the truth of what they in- 
culcated. I need not quote passages from their writings in proof 
of this : for you cannot read any part of their epistles and dis- 
courses, without perceiving the evident signs of an unwavering 
faith in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world, and of an 
ardent zeal for the salvation of sinners. 

Finally, if the apostles were a set of lying impostors, who 
banded together to deceive mankind, how can you account for it 
that not one of them ever confessed the imposture, and that 
every one of them, and of their coadjutors, adhered to the false- 
hood under every temptation and trial, and either suffered mar- 

* See Romans iii. 5-8. 2 Peter ii. 1-3. Also Ephesians iv. 14-25. 2 Timothy 
iii. 10-14. 



102 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



tyrdom, or was ready to suffer it, in attestation of these uselesa 
and unprofitable fictions ? 

I conclude that the apostles could not have been such wicked 
and unprincipled impostors as they must have been, if they were 
not honest men and sincere believers in the miracles, the resurrec- 
tion, and the Divine mission of Jesus Christ. We must therefore 
embrace the alternative, that they were honest men, and sincerely 
persuaded of the truth of what they testified concerning Jesus 
Christ. Therefore, so far as the facts which they stated were of the 
natural and ordinary sort, you and all rational men would readily 
believe their testimony. But as some of those facts were miracu- 
lous and therefore in their nature improbable, you may reasona- 
bly suspend your belief until you have duly considered whether 
the testimony has sufficient weight to overcome the improbability 
of the facts. 

We have considered the testimony of the apostles only so far 
as it derives weight from the competency and honesty of the wit- 
nesses. It remains to consider whether the testimony derives 
any additional weight from the independency of the witnesses. 

Although I think that we might safely rest the argument upon 
what has been already advanced, it is proper to consider also 
whether or not the testimony of the apostles and evangelists can 
be regarded as in any measure independent. 

As the apostles were often together, both during the Saviour's 
ministry and shortly after his crucifixion, it might seem at first 
view, that they cannot be considered as independent witnesses. 
But the mere fact that they had opportunities of communicating 
with one another about the matter of their testimony, does not pre- 
clude us from considering them as independent witnesses. The 
independence of witnesses does not arise from their having no com- 
munication with one another about the matter in question, but on 
the fact that each witness speaks from his own knowledge, and 
not from the suggestion or information of another. The circum- 
stance that the witnesses have had no communication with one 
another, is important only as a proof of their independence. But 
other circumstances may afford sufficient proof of independence. 
When we perceive that each witness tells the story in his own way, 
agreeing substantially, but not in all points circumstantially, with 
the rest, this is a strong argument of independence ; especially 
when the manner and matter of each one's testimony bear that 
impress of personal knowledge in the witness, which is more easily 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 103 

felt than described, when we hear the testimony. It consists 
partly in a certain promptitude and sincerity of manner, and 
partly in the incidental mention of minute circumstances. 

There is nothing in the history or in the testimony of the apos- 
tles inconsistent with the supposition that they were independent 
witnesses. We have not on record the distinct testimony of every 
one: we must judge, therefore, from the specimens that we have. 
We have the testimonies of Matthew and John in the gospels 
which they wrote. They bear infallible evidence that these two 
apostles did not borrow from one another, nor from any common 
source. Mark and Luke were not apostles ; but as their accounts 
were evidently not borrowed from Matthew or John, but derived 
from independent sources, we may justly consider them as being 
at second hand the testimony of other apostles and original wit- 
nesses. We have also in the Acts and apostolical Epistles fre- 
quent allusions to the actions, sufferings and resurrection of Christ, 
taken not from the four Gospels, but either from the personal 
knowledge of the writers, or from the mouths of original witnesses, 
and therefore favoring the hypothesis of independent testimony. 
On the whole, we may from all these facts conclude that the 
apostles and other original witnesses testified independently. I 
do not affirm that the independence of their testimony is perfect, 
and carries with it as much weight as under other circumstances 
it might have done. But your candor will lead you to admit, that 
whilst the occasional differences in small matters show the inde- 
pendence of the witnesses, the general coincidence in their testi- 
mony affords no small evidence of its truth, independent of the 
personal character of the witnesses. 

Let us now endeavor to sum up the amount of the evidence, 
and to form some notion of its force. I shall not presume to 
measure it with mathematical precision, though as heretofore I may 
use numbers to aid our conceptions, without pretending that they 
give an exact expression of the quantities which they represent. 

We have then, on reliable authority, the testimony of twelve 
competent and honest witnesses of our Saviour's miracles, and 
particularly of his resurrection from the dead. Though, for want 
of documents, we cannot distinctly exhibit what every one of 
these witnesses testified, yet we have satisfactory evidence that 
they all concurred in the material facts and circumstances of 
their testimony, that we have in the four Gospels the sum and 
substance of what they all avowed respecting Jesus of Nazareth. 



10-A MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

If any of you still think that something more should be adduced 
before we can rely on having the testimony of twelve good wit- 
nesses to the gospel history, then I refer you to the great quan- 
tity of auxiliary evidence which the New Testament records pre- 
sent ; for we can doubtless rely on these records for facts so ordi- 
nary in kind and so probable in themselves, as the fact that others, 
not few in number, besides the apostles, professed to have wit- 
nessed some at least of Christ's miracles. You will bear in mind 
that the apostles began their preaching and testimony only a few 
weeks after the crucifixion of Christ; that they began at Jerusa- 
lem, where he was crucified, to proclaim his resurrection before 
the multitudes of Jews collected from all parts of the land at the 
great festival of Pentecost ; — that they exercised their ministry 
for several years in various parts of the Holy Land, where Jesus 
himself had travelled and exhibited the evidence of his claims 
as a missionary from God ; and that not only had multitudes 
gathered around him, many believed in his mission, and many 
others, especially scribes and Pharisees, watched and opposed 
him, ascribing his mighty works to the devil — but the apostles, 
after his crucifixion, going over the same ground, and testifying 
before the same generation the fact of his resurrection, converted 
thousands, and established numerous churches on the faith of his 
miracles when alive, and of his resurrection after death. 

Now if there be any truth in these statements, which cannot be 
reasonably denied, then the apostles were far from being the only 
witnesses who testified to the same facts. If the apostles told the 
truth, many others must have corroborated their testimony; if 
they published falsehoods, many others must have been able to 
contradict them : for they not only gave the facts of their story 
specifically and circumstantially, but they gave the times and 
places, and thus exposed them to decisive investigation, and vir- 
tually referred them to other witnesses for confirmation or denial. 

It is true that Jesus did not after his resurrection show himself 
openly to all the people. This would have been useless, for he 
could not have been infallibly recognized, except by his intimate 
acquaintances, and by them only after an inspection so close and 
minute as would necessarily confine it to a few individuals. Rec- 
ollect the instances recorded in history, of impostors successfully 
passing themselves off for dead princes, and how often you have 
yourselves, upon a slight or distant view, mistaken one man for 
another. 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



105 



Recollect, also, that it was not easy for the apostles to be fully 
satisfied of Christ's identity after his resurrection. The fact was 
so extraordinary, so difficult of belief, that it was not until they 
had irresistible evidence of its reality, that all their doubts were 
removed. He had to appear to them at divers times and in divers 
manners ; to eat with them, converse with them, and submit his 
body to a tactual examination, before all of them were satisfied. 
Yet these men had been with him in close companionship for 
years. How then could a public exhibition of himself have de- 
cided the question of his resurrection, even if he had submitted 
himself before his enemies to a degrading course of examinations, 
which would after all have afforded them an occasion for pretend- 
ing that it was all a piece of imposture ? Not only was it more 
consistent with his dignity, but a more conclusive mode of proof, 
to verify his resurrection by first giving his chosen witnesses in- 
fallible evidence of his identity, and then confirming their testi- 
mony by " signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of 
the Holy Ghost." 

Now, to say nothing of the five hundred brethren to whom, as 
St. Paul informs us, he appeared once after his resurrection, we 
may affirm that all who witnessed the apostolical miracles, could 
afterwards by means of this testimony of God, confirm the testi- 
mony of the apostles by their own. When St. Paul, writing to 
the Galatians, appealed to the miracles which he had wrought 
among them, would not the testimony of these witnesses of his 
miracles afterwards corroborate St. Paul's own testimony respect- 
ing the truth of Christianity? 

Thus supposing that the apostles testified what the New Tes- 
tament records uniformly declare that they did testify, and sup- 
posing that they professed to confirm their testimony by miracles, 
as the same records declare, — then if these records are not wholly 
spurious and false, which no one can reasonably suspect, it fol- 
lows that the apostles did not stand alone in their testimony. 
They could not have stood before unbelieving Jews and Gentiles, 
in the same places and in the same years in which all those 
alleged miracles, Christ's and their own, were exhibited, if ex- 
hibited at all, and have appealed successfully to those miracles, 
unless others besides themselves could be appealed to in corrob- 
oration of their statements. 

I conclude, therefore, that we have for the miracles of Christ 
what is more than equivalent to the sstimony of twelve honest 



106 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



men, speaking independently from personal knowledge, that 
these men had no motive of interest or of passion to swerve from 
the truth, that their conduct and writings afford the strongest 
evidence of honesty and sincerity. I have before shown that 
they were fully competent to observe and report such plain facts 
as they relate concerning Jesus Christ. 

Considering these things, what degree of credibility would you 
assign to each apostle's testimony, leaving out of view the nature 
of the facts to which he testifies ? How often do you think that 
a man of such character would, ordinarily, tell the truth, before 
he would solemnly bear false witness? Surely, an upright, con- 
scientious man w T ould not, in ordinary cases, tell less than ten 
thousand truths to one lie. But it is enough and far more than 
enough, if we can assign a probability of only one thousand tc 
one, for the truth of each apostle's testimony. Then the concur- 
rence of two apostles would produce a probability of trutl. 
amounting to a thousand thousands, or a million to one. A third 
concurring would again raise it to one thousand millions ; a 
fourth would swell it to a million millions to one. The twelve 
would multiply it to an inconceivable magnitude of evidence in 
favor of Christ's miracles. Subtract from it whatever amount of 
improbability you can reasonably assign to his miracles, and 
there must still remain an immense balance of evidence for the 
miracles of that purest and best of the sons of men, Jesus who 
died for our sins according to the Scriptures. 

But this weight of evidence will be greatly augmented if we 
combine with the character of the apostles as honest men, their 
character of independent witnesses, whose manner of giving their 
testimony, so far as we know it from the records, shows that they 
did not borrow from one another. If we allow that only a few 
of them were independent, or that we have only a moderate 
probability in favor of the independence of the twelve as wit- 
nesses, then their testimony will come with greatly augmented 
weight against the improbability of the facts. 

Should the result of my reasonings on the evidence for Christ's 
miracles surprise any one, because the weight of apostolic testi- 
mony appears to be astonishingly great ; I refer him to his own 
experience. Let him consider this. He places full confidence m 
the testimony of two or three witnesses of common honesty, 
when they concur, when there is no opposing testimony, when 
they appear to be independent, and when they sacrifice much in 



MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 107 

giving such testimony. The fact to which they testify must be 
exceedingly improbable to raise even a doubt that the witnesses 
speak the truth. But suppose that other witnesses are called, 
and one after another confirm the statements of the former, till 
twelve have testified, and all the twelve suffer much in conse- 
quence of their testimony, yet adhere firmly to it all their lives 
long. Is there any miracle recorded in the Gospels which he 
would not believe, or you would not all believe on such testimony ? 
Surely not. Such testimony has irresistible force upon minds 
open to conviction. 

Many in the apostolic age heard the testimony of the apostles 
without believing it. This is not surprising. They were im- 
bued from the cradle with other religions and were filled with 
various sorts of prejudices. Not many heard the testimony of 
more than one or two apostles, after these witnesses left Jeru- 
salem on different missions ; and the notion that demons could 
work miracles enabled unbelievers to evade the force of evidence 
which we leasonably consider irresistible. 

Here I close this long argument, too long if the subject had 
been less important or could have been satisfactorily discussed in 
less time. I was not willing to make a lame and impotent de- 
fence of our religion on the most essential part of its evidence as 
a revelation from God. I have been compelled to omit many 
things which might be adduced with advantage to the argument. 

The prophecies of the Old and New Testament being sensible 
interpositions of God in control of the established course of 
things, which no natural causes can explain, are as really mi- 
raculous as any of the wonderful works of our Lord ; and have 
the additional advantage of being subjected in their proof to our 
own observation : but as this topic has been assigned to another, 
I have of course entirely omitted it in the present discussion. 

If what God has enabled me to say shall tend to strengthen 
any man's faith in the Divine mission of our Lord Jesus Christ — 
who loved us and gave himself for us — then to our merciful 
Father in heaven be the praise. Amen. 



BY 

7. ALEXANDER T. M'GILL, D.D. 



P&CFESSOR IN THE "WESTERN THEGLOG OAL 
SEMINARY, ALLEGHANY, PA. 



I. 



It will not be denied, that sacred piophecy was extant, with 
its text completely finished, four hundred years ago ; when the 
Bible was first printed, with movable metallic types, by Gut- 
temberg of Mentz. The last four hundred years, however, have 
been the most impenetrable of all eras, to the exercise of human 
foresight ; teeming with more numerous, involved, and utter con- 
tingencies, than pervade the whole duration of ages before. The 
passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope ; the discovery of a 
western hemisphere ; the great reformation in Europe ; the revo- 
lutions in England, America, and France ; not to speak of magical 
changes, by means of science, invention, and art ; — all these have 
made the history of man a maze of transformation, compared 
with which the former times were vista, obstructed by this laby- 
rinth alone. 

Surely, it can be no human foresight, which could delineate, in 
the lapse of such a future, lands devoted to the exception of a 
curse; and say, that this and that particular country, or people, 
would be palsied by the side of universal progress — not affected 
materially, nor affected at all, by the extreme vicissitudes and 
overwhelming emergencies which have come on the whole world 
besides. Least of all would human sagacity have ventured to 
affirm, that Egypt, Palestine, and Syria would be as they now 
are ; for until that very time, these countries had been a theatre 
of perpetual changes, and the most wonderful events that burden 
the pages of history. Simultaneous with that primitive impres- 
sion of the Bible, was the fall of Constantinople into the hands 
of the Ottoman Turk: and who, with less than superhuman 
prescience, could have told, that here the waves of eastern revo- 
lution would be stayed, that Turkish turbulence itself would not 
break the stillness of desolation henceforth, that the day of civil 
redemption for all civilized nations, the day of liberty and com- 
merce, art and science, would not first dawn, nor dawn at all, on 



112 



PROPHECY. 



the regions of rapid and extreme revolution, through aJ. previous 
time. 

Defer then, if you please, the whole question of date, integrity, 
and preservation of these oracles ; and the faithful corroboration, 
with which all history details the facts of their fulfilment, until 
you subject their minute vaticinations to the inquest of living 
observers, and the verdict of journalizing infidelity itself. We 
have not only the general condition of ruin, yet to be seen, just as 
the Scriptures foretold it, over lands which have as delicious a 
climate, and as fertile a bosom, by nature, as any others on the 
face of the earth — itself conclusive proof that these prophets 
" spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ;" and the general 
exemption from change, during a period of unparalleled changes, 
everywhere else, in lands, which, down till the accession of Mo- 
hammed the 2d, had been a battle-field of every power and every 
principle that struggled for mastery in human affairs — which 
monotony of ruin is also, of itself, a miracle in forecast ; but we 
have minute accomplishments of the ancient letter, within these 
last four hundred years — a touch of Providence, here and there, 
upon the general picture, which might convince a skepticism, low 
enough to doubt all evidence anterior to the age of printing. 

" The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth," said 
Isaiah, in foretelling the judgments of God upon his country: and 
what traveller does not verify, to its letter, the truth of this pre- 
diction, since the Turk established his empire over Palestine? 
"In the interior of the country," says Volney, " there are neither 
great roads, nor canals, nor even bridges, over the greatest part of 
the rivers and torrents, however necessary they may be, in win- 
ter. Nobody travels alone, for the insecurity of the roads. The 
roads among the mountains are extremely bad, and the inhabit- 
ants are so far from levelling them, that they endeavor to make 
them more rugged, in order, as they say, to cure the Turks of 
their desire to introduce their cavalry." 

" Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden 
my portion under foot," said the prophet Jeremiah, in bewailing 
the same future desolation. And Yolney has detailed the accom- 
plishment, with a minuteness of description which no other testi- 
mony has surpassed. After enumerating a long list of pastoral 
marauders, who infest the whole region of Syria, in which he 
includes Judea — Curds, and Turkomen, and Bedouin Arabs — he 
informs us, that the most sedentary inhabitants are compelled to 



PROPHECY. 



113 



oecome wandering bandits, in self-defence, and that, "under a 
government like that of the Turks, it is safer to lead a wandering 
life, than to choose a settled habitation." 

"I will give it into the hands of strangers, for a prey," said 
Ezekiel, " and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil. The rob- 
ber shall enter into it and defile it." " When the Ottomans took 
Syria from the Mamelukes," says the infidel tourist, " they con- 
sidered it as the spoil of a vanquished enemy. The government 
are far from disapproving of a system of robbery and plunder 
which it finds so profitable." 

Even the prophecies of Moses, on the same subject, never had 
their accomplishment written out, with more striking exactness, 
than by the pen of this great academician. "The stranger," says 
Moses, " that cometh from a far land shall say, when they see 
the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the Lord hath 
laid on it — Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this land — 
what meaneth the heat of this great anger?" "Good God !" 
exclaims Volney, who did come from a far land, a stranger in 
every sense to the scene he surveyed — " whence proceed such 
melancholy revolutions — for what cause is the fortune of these 
countries so strikingly changed — why are so many cities destroy- 
ed — why is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetu- 
ated?" 

These are specimens, taken at random, from only four ancient 
prophets, relating to a single topic, restricted to the latest era of 
fulfilment, and confirmed by the unwilling testimony of a skeptical 
philosopher. Evidence, precisely similar, might be multiplied to 
any extent of modern travel — in regard to Samaria, Judea, 
Philistia, Tyre, Amnion, Edom, Egypt — every country whose 
doom is recorded in prophecies of Scripture. Everywhere, minute 
and incidental, but not less forcible demonstrations of their truth, 
have been enacted, since the day when chirography resigned to 
the press that toil of transcription, which infidelity is fain to cover 
with suspicion of unfaithfulness. 

Now, if enlightened observers, like Volney, are so much aston- 
ished at the singular and constant desolation of those Eastern 
countries, with the whole operation of second causes fully before 
them, surely, no intelligence of man could have ventured four, 
(much less thirty) centuries ago, to draw such a picture : not even 
with the clear anticipation of despotic Islamism, firmly established, 
during this period : for, in the light of history, all those regions 

8 



114 PROPHECY. 

wanted to retrieve their melancholy wastes was rest — rest, though 
burdened with tyranny rapacious as that of Roman procurators, 
under whom, according to Josephus, Galilee alone contained more 
than two hundred towns and cities crowded with industrious 
people. 

Geographical accuracy itself, in these predictions, might be 
called a miracle of truth. Where is the author, not to say the 
score of authors, from Strabo, to Malte Brun, whose description of 
places and manners referred to in the prophets, though far less 
particular, is not contradicted, on almosi every page, by travellers 
and writers more recent? But all the researches, of believers and 
unbelievers alike, conducted with the utmost help of science, liter- 
ature, and leisure, have not hitherto discovered one mistake 
among the innumerable assertions and allusions, of the many 
authors, in this holy volume. And yet, instinct with its own ag- 
gressive life and truth, it will not rest in this freedom from valid 
contradiction. Where, from the poverty of ancient annals, it had 
been left a lone witness to facts on which its prophecy was based, 
in the luxury, magnificence, and crime, of cities and countries, 
over which it uttered the doom we witness at the present day ; 
and after it has waited long for the accomplishment of one partic- 
ular, that men would not even know where that ruined grandeur 
reposed, it comes, with the spirit of this eager age, to dig its ter- 
minus a quo, from the bowels of the earth, or scale it on the 
desert rock, and guide the hermeneutics of science herself, by the 
hints of obsolete prophecy. 

Another proof, that these predictions are a miracle, even if their 
date could not be traced beyond the epoch of a printed Bible, is 
the condition of the Jewish people. At the middle of the 15th 
century, what sagacious diviner among men, judging from the 
tendency of visible events, would not have said, that the Jews 
would soon become entirely merged in other nations, and cease to 
be known as a distinct and singular people ? The golden age of 
their modern learning had just pre-occupied the admiration of 
Europe ; and it was not the learning which had signalized the 
palmy days of ancient Israel — historical writing, chronicles, and 
genealogies, that were naturally conducive to their perpetuity as 
a separate family. They had now become the best of medieval 
philosophers — the physicians, astronomers, and political econo 
mists, of dawning science. Their poetry itself had been divorced 
from national traditions, and from the imagery of altar and sacn- 



PROPHECY. 



115 



fice, tabernacle and temple, as well as the parallelism of its He- 
brew metre ; and become localized and fresh, as the lays of the 
Troubadour. The agricultural industry which had been their 
ancient pride, and which more than any other pursuit of life, 
would isolate a people, had been relinquished ; not for mysteries of 
art, reserved to themselves and their children; but for the busi- 
ness of exchange, open and wide as the commerce of the world. 
Add to this, the many particular facts, which had just trans- 
pired then, especially on the greatest theatre of observation, at 
that time, in the civilized world — Catholic Spain — where amalga- 
mation itself threatened their extinction as a separate people, and 
inquisitors complained, that almost every noble family in the 
realm had become tainted, by intermarriage with the mala san- 
gre of the house of Judah, and where thirty-five thousand converts 
from Judaism had been made, by the eloquence and legerdemain 
of one St. Vincent Ferrier alone. And yet, the lapse of four hun- 
dred years, intensely working all the while, with influences, and 
agencies, and accidents, which have never failed in any other 
case, with less than half their force, to annihilate a nation, has 
left them still a distinct and singular people. Take but the land 
of their fathers, from any primitive tribe on this continent, in 
North, or South, or Central America, and they fade from the 
earth. No matter what beautiful lands of prairie and forest you 
give in exchange, and what pains you take, to perpetuate their 
own barbarous tongue, and what beneficence you exert, to heal 
their diseases, teach their ignorance, and encourage the arts of 
husbandry and peace and independent self-government — come to 
their place, and they perish from the nations. Similar, if not so 
frail, is the tendency of all distinctive national existence to vanish 
away at the contact of heterogeneous civilization, or change of 
language, law, intercourse, or custom. But here is the unparal- 
leled exception. Bred, in every diversity of language and custom 
under heaven — steeped in every element of social, civil, and re- 
ligious change — scattered and peeled, within this period, by more 
horrid persecutions to the constancy of individual fortitude, than 
ever befel their fathers, at the hands of Adrian and Heraclius — 
and then, again, released, indulged, caressed ; made richer in the 
old world, than Solomon himself " in all his glory," and freer in 
the new world, than judges of their ancient commonwealth — it 
is all the same. " A full end," according to one of these prophe- 
cies, approaches to Spain, and Portugal and every modern na- 



116 PROPHECY. 

tion, distinguished for oppressing them, just as it has been com- 
pleted on Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Rome, and every ancient 
" rod'' of vengeance in the hand of almighty truth — but they 
survive ! 

Why, the miracle of this anomaly itself, might well bespeak 
the credibility of oracles, sent down through such a living mystery 
among us ; but when we know, it was foretold, ages before the 
contingencies that shape it could have been imagined, how irresist- 
ible the inference, that God alone foretold it, and must have given 
the Bible ; where alone these marvels can be explained ; where, 
even the portions they reject, inform us, that the mystery of this 
preservation is the completion of prophecies, yet to be effected by 
their instrumentality. What is there peculiar, in the past and 
present condition of the Jews, that was not prophesied, and 
threatened more than promised, in the prophecies, and therefore 
most unwillingly fulfilled ? Their dispersion among all nations, 
and yet everlasting immiscibility ; their blindness and suffering, 
feebleness and fearfulness ; their ceaseless agitation, compulsion to 
idolatry, and temptation to hypocrisy ; their obdurate unbelief, 
deep malignity, avarice of wealth, and exposure in every age to 
robbery, mockery, and remorseless oppression — all were foretold by 
their own early prophets, and among these, even the meekly pa- 
triotic leader of their exodus from bondage, over the infancy of 
their national existence, while as yet they were a most fickle and 
fluctuating people, so changeable, as to surprise him with a com- 
plete revolution of sentiment, during his absence of forty days on 
the mount, although the thunders of Sinai had been commis- 
sioned, meanwhile, to keep them in constancy. 

II. But it is time to advance from our gratuitous position, and 
to indicate the boundless field of confirmation, which the true 
date of these predictions will throw open. We received the Old 
Testament prophecies from the Jews ; and certainly, no corrup- 
tion^of the text can have occurred, within the last 1800 years 
of deposit in the hands of Christians, for Jews and Christians 
have checked each other, all the while, with a vigilance which 
has never slept : and galled, as the former have always been, by 
the evidence of fulfilment in Jesus of Nazareth, they would have 
exposed, with loud and long reprehension, the slightest alteration 
of the text that could have crept into Christendom. 

Before the advent of Christ, the integrity of every book, and 
the truth of every date, were guaranteed beyond a doubt by the 



PROPHECY. 



117 



superstition, which numbered the words and the letters, and de- 
nounced death on the man who would alter a point or iota ; by 
the jealous animosity of parties in opposite schools, or political 
factions, which were founded on diverse interpretations, and ex- 
isted from the days of the prophets themselves ; by the public 
reading in the synagogue, which engraved the words on the mem- 
ory of the people ; by the existence of translations, and especially 
the Greek, at Alexandria, nearly 300 years before the Christian 
era, and in a metropolis of learning, where religious eclecticism 
was the fashion of philosophy, and would be sure, in the hands 
of both Jew and Greek, to fix a special attention upon this won- 
derful volume : these considerations, and others, such as the inter- 
nal evidence, from language, allusion, and order, prove most 
clearly that no post eventum interpolation can have mingled with 
these prophecies, and no surreptitious date can have cheated the 
church under any dispensation. 

True, the temerity of unbelief has often assailed this clear 
demonstration. Porphyry said the book of Daniel must have 
been written after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, because the 
events of his reign are so minutely described — thus, in fact, yielding 
the argument; and leaving us no more to refute than a cavil of 
criticism, which hardly stands to be told — a play upon words, 
which he discovered in some apocryphal appendage, that was 
published with the Greek translation of Daniel ; from which he 
conjectured that the book had been written in Greek, originally, 
and translated into Hebrew : and yet, beyond all question, the 
book was extant, in Greek, more than a hundred years before the 
time of Antiochus Epiphanes, which, itself, suffices for the argument. 
When we know that this is all an accomplished adversary, sixteen 
hundred years ago, with all his pains and opportunities, could do, 
in discrediting the date of these predictions, we may well suppose, 
that any hardihood like his, in modern times, would slaver worse 
in the infatuation. 

And so it happens with renowned neology ; the very fame of 
which has propped the infidelity, that never read a page of German 
exegesis. This new era of interpretation is perfectly explained, 
so far as our subject is concerned, when we say, that it has 
brought all the learning and ingenuity of man, to argue in a 
circle, that there can be no proper prophecy at all — no revelation 
of the contingent future. This negation of our faith is always 
presumed in order to be proved ; anc now, that they have had 



118 



PROPHECY. 



a century of time for the work of their own great doctrinal pre 
judice, in their own way of logical injustice, what are the results? 
We ask not for a system, coherent and complete, which they have 
built on the ruins of our supernatural faith ; for system they never 
proposed ; and, in destruction to the objective bulwarks of religion, 
they have destroyed one another in quick and constant succes- 
sion. But what principles of interpretation may we glean from 
the vast researches, and progressive development, with which the 
rationalistic criticism would emancipate man from belief in the 
marvellous? Just enough to subvert all historical evidence, and 
cover with doubt the whole authenticated past. 

Whatever has come down to the eighteenth century, undisputed 
and unchallenged, through ten thousand generations, of the 
learned and the unlearned, must, of course, be considered spurious 
until the contrary be proved. By this canon the prophecy of 
Isaiah has been set aside. Whatever, on the other hand, has 
met a challenge, at any time, in the course of criticism or of con- 
troversy, however long posterior to its proper date, must be also 
rejected. By this canon, Daniel and the Apocalypse are both set 
aside. Wherever another reading can be conjectured, materially 
different from that which has been received, it is to be the true 
reading until the other can be proved: and wherever the fertility 
and taste of any author, avoid the use of a remarkable expres- 
sion, more than once, that expression must be considered an in- 
terpolation by some later hand. By these canons, all prophecy is 
rifled of its pure vaticination, and left a turgid rhapsody, without 
even the gems of literature to commend it. — No other limit shall 
be imposed on the license of critical acumen than a man's own 
critical feeling : and wherever, by the dictates of this critical feel- 
ing, there may be internal proof of genuineness and integrity in 
any book, this proof can establish no more than a good imitation 
by a subsequent writer. By these canons, all revelation becomes 
a subjective chameleon, forever uncertain to the most believing 
individual. 

Such are some of the axioms which must be the basis of all 
exposition, and the bottom of all deep research, if you follow 
these guides in biblical study; or venture any investigation 
whatever, with that same refinement of criticism which three 
generations of progressive neology have attained, by seeking rest 
in letters for the foot of enlightened infidelity. And is it not 
enough to establish the truth of every date, and the integrity of 



PROPHECY. 



119 



every text, that we point you to this amazing fatuity of gifted 
scholars and profound philologists, who have devoted a lifetime to 
the work of their repudiation? Deadly recoil forever attends the 
impotent endeavor. 

But now, that the true antiquity and antecedence of these 
prophecies will bring all history before us, in the range of their 
accomplishment, compared with which; the attestations we have 
indicated, within the last four hundred years, are but a glance at 
the sepulchre as it remains until this day — where shall we begin 
or end the illustration of our theme : or how compute the greater 
cogency of this great argument, when the retrocession of the 
date, not only multiplies the number, but enhances the contin- 
gency of prophesied events, by so many more intervening threads 
of complicated influence and incident? Thebes, and Petra, and 
Rabbah. and Gaza, and Tyre, and Samaria, and Jerusalem, and 
Nineveh, and Babylon — cities in particular, whose greater minute- 
ness of destiny wonld be far less adventured by human conjec- 
ture than countries or kingdoms — all had their downfall described, 
and their present condition of ruin foretold, in remote antiquity, 
and at the very time when each in its proud glory was most 
rampant and secure. Go, we beg you, to the most rigid and 
careful examination, with the Bible in one hand, and history in 
the other. So numerous are the prophecies before us, that no less 
than two hundred distinct predictions may be counted in relation 
to the family of Abraham alone ; most of which have been 
already fulfilled to the very letter, none of which have ever been 
falsified, and such as remain to be accomplished, guaranty the 
certainty of that event, not only by words which have never 
failed, but by facts, submitted to the observation of every age, in 
the standing miracle of Arabic as well as Jewish nationality. 
Despairing of justice to any part of this great field, and oppressed 
with the magnitude of its claims to a full investigation, we shall 
merely stand for a little at the central theme of inspired predic- 
tions, the truth of every promise, the substance of every shadow, 
the mystery of God manifest in the flesh. 

Four thousand years, at least, before the birth of Jesus Christ, 
it was announced that the seed of the woman would bruise the 
head of the serpent ; a most frivolous declaration, in the most 
dignified and sublime of all compositions, if it mean anything 
else than the promise of a great avenger on the agent of our 
ruin, to spring from the mother of mankind.. More than two 



120 



PROPHECY. 



thousand years afterwards the spirit of prophecy began to de- 
velop and define that primeval promise ; foretelling its fulfilment 
in the seed of Abraham, then of Isaac, then of Jacob, then of 
Judah, and at length of David. And, along with these succes- 
sive limitations of his lineage in the flesh, were successive revela- 
tions of his character, and the constitution of his person, by words 
and by types, until the waxing adumbration became the burden 
of song. All the powers of imagination, and depths of emotion, 
and fountains of tender affection, and intimacies of personal ex- 
perience, in the trials of life, and succors of grace, and conduct 
of Providence — the whole inner life of the Hebrews — became a 
sentiment of mysterious anticipation, which passed over even to 
the heathen around them, and spread with every dispersion of the 
Jews, until it imbued the literature of pagans, and became a world- 
wide expectation. The prophets of Israel availed themselves of 
this great Messianic idea in the popular mind to arouse, rebuke, 
console, or encourage the nation, according to circumstances : so 
that abrupt transitions to it and from it, as well as latent intima- 
tions of it, were perfectly natural, in view of this general senti- 
ment among the people, as well as extatic impulse of the seer. 

A splendid succession of prophets followed the Psalms of 
David for the space of five hundred years ; each one revealing a 
new feature, while rehearsing in the color of his own genius and 
times what others had uttered; until the portraiture was finished, 
four hundred years before the actual advent. And what a sum 
of special criteria does it embody, by which to test his absolute 
identity and their true inspiration of God ! It foretells that he 
will come in lowly condition ; born of a virgin, at Bethlehem ; 
of the family of David, when it shall have sunk to the lowest 
depression ; — that a forerunner, in the spirit of Elijah, will herald 
his entrance on a public ministry ; and a copious effusion of the 
Holy Ghost will be his great inauguration ; and Galilee of the 
gentiles the principal place of his beneficent working and teach- 
ing ; — that his formal entrance into Jerusalem will be upon an 
ass, amidst the loud acclamations of a multitude, while the 
second temple is yet standing to receive him, the recesses of 
which will ring with hosannas of little children in his praise ;— 
that his authority will be rejected, his salvation refused, his per- 
son despised ; and surrounded by malignant persecutors, betrayed 
into their hands by his own familiar friend, and that for thirty 
pieces of silver, he will be devoted, with his own meek submit 



PROPHECY. 



121 



sion, to extreme insult, mockery, and abuse, until his hands and 
feet are pierced, and his life cut off by their violence ; cut off in 
the midst of malefactors, and for the transgression of others ; 
without a spot of guilt on his own soul, or one taint of iniquity 
on the whole of his life ; — that his murderers will distribute his 
clothing by lot ; and he will be laid in the grave of a rich man 
at his burial; but not long enough to see corruption in his body, 
for he will rise from the dead with power, ascend to heaven with 
a shout of angels; and usher down the glories of a new adminis- 
tration, with a great effusion of the Spirit, upon all classes and 
conditions of men ; and glad tidings will be everywhere pro- 
claimed, the burden of Levitical rites will be abolished, and guilty 
Jerusalem destroyed ; — and all these wonderful and particular 
things are fixed, in time, precisely, by a computation of weeks 
and half weeks, five hundred years before they occurred ! 

What possible ingenuity of unbelief can evade this overwhelm- 
ing demonstration at the centre of our theme — "more sure," ac- 
cording to Peter, than an audible voice from the throne of 
heaven ? No one can deny that these things, and many others 
predicted, were exactly fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth ; and no 
one will say, without absurdity, that if all the parties concerned 
in working out the accomplishment had joined together in per- 
fect concert, they could have made so many contingencies work 
together at the very time and place. But who does not know 
that they were completed, not only through strange conjunctures, 
sudden and signal, but in spite of confusion, hostility, ignorance, 
and counteraction, to the utmost extent of man's perverted will? 
From the close of the Old Testament prophecy to the coming of 
Christ, the interval was one of incessant agitation over all the 
world, and especially Palestine, where not only was the Jewish 
commonwealth "overturned, and overturned, and overturned," by 
every change of politics, and the crown of David flung as a 
bauble from hand to hand of the insolent victors ; but schools of 
arrogant pretension, arose in the bosom of the nation, which de- 
praved the Messianic apprehension of their pious fathers, and 
would have utterly prevented, without one external disturbance, 
the manifestation of a Saviour like ours, as the product of his 
age, or psychological effect of a national sentiment for ages 
maturing, or, in any sense whatever, a self-evolution, by the 
operation of causes— like the many false Christs, that so often 
appeared, in the sequel, to please and punish a morbid expecta- 



122 



J'EOPHECT. 



tion. He came, after all, a surprising fact, a great historical 
emergency, which the manifold and minute predictions " that 
went before upon him," could do no more than attest and iden- 
tify to a reluctant world. 

The Great Prophet himself would, of course, mingle the future 
in his own teaching and preaching. And the companions of his 
life recorded, with care, not only predictions, which they lived to 
register beside the accomplishment, but predictions which they 
left unfulfilled, and sent forth, a liability for all men to seize ; with 
all that was dear and true in their holy convictions, gaged on the 
occurrence of improbable contingencies. Such was the prophecy 
of our Lord respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, published by 
three of the evangelists, wide as the empire, many years before 
that catastrophe ; and which the unbelieving Josephus, and the 
pagan Tacitus, and the Jewish Talmud itself, were left to confirm 
or confute according to events. Near forty years before the 
armies of Vespasian entered Judea, a casual conversation took 
place at the temple, where the disciples of our Lord, looking with 
fresh admiration at the huge foundation stones of that magnifi- 
cent edifice, one of them said to him, " Master, see what manner 
of stones and what buildings are here !" "Jesus, answering, said 
unto him, Seest thou these great buildings ? there shall not be 
left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." 
Was it probable, then, that the Roman empire would suffer any 
power on earth to spoil, with such deletion, the glory of that 
temple, the pride of the East, and cherished trophy of her own 
invincible arms ? — and still more, that she herself would do it, so 
pleased of late with the loyal munificence of Herod, and so in- 
tent on pleasing a nation, renowned for obstinate courage, and 
numerous now, even to the banks of the Tiber? — and that in the 
Augustan age, of magnanimity and taste, of all others, the most 
averse from vandalic violence to monuments of art, or habitations 
of the local divinities she conquered? Yet we know it was done, 
with a vengeance, by the Roman himoelf, in a freak of exaspera- 
tion, which even military orders could not prevent. The very 
name has been transmitted, of the man, Terentius Rufus. who 
drove a ploughshare through the ground on which the temple was 
built. 

The very caprice of a Roman leader, who advanced, in the mean- 
time, with a powerful army against Jerusalem, when it might have 
been taken without a battle, and then retreated, and retreated 



PROPHECY. 



123 



without a reason, does not escape the eye of this Prophet. (Matt, 
xxiv. 6.) All the intervening casualties, of any account, are 
minutely predicted as signs of that dreadful consummation — false 
Ch rists, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, and fearful sights from 
heaven, as well as war among the Jews, and persecution of the 
Christians — any one of which, foretold with similar precision, 
would have made a god of the most besotted pagan on the earth. 
And could we conceive that all these were but fortunate conject- 
ures, or astute speculations, on the temper of a turbulent and 
seditious people, how is it that he would hazard a measure of 
time for the whole accomplishment? — and such a measure — itself 
a miracle of foresight — it was to be within the life of a man, at 
that time in his presence. Compare Matt. xvi. 28 and xxiv. 34. 
John, his own disciple, did outlive the destruction of Jerusalem ; 
and he is the only evangelist who did not record the prophecy, as 
he is the only one who could have tinged its terms, with post 
eventum observation. And still more than this, the most im- 
probable thing in the world is expressly predicted as another ante- 
cedent : "The gospel must first be published among all nations" 
— a gospel which was not yet understood by the most intimate 
and wise of his own disciples, and which, by the direction of his 
own lips, had been confined to the limits of Judea — a gospel for 
the world promised by a Jew, and to be spread by the instrumen- 
tality of Jews, the very genius of w T hom was monopoly of reli- 
gious advantages. Universal promulgation! — the thought of 
which had never entered the mind of man before — for any system 
of religion, morals, or philosophy : godlike, the lone idea, without a 
prophecy to promise it — much more to promise it so soon, while 
as yet there was not a " mustard seed" of visibility portending it. 
And yet it came to pass. The empire had been all traversed 
over, and the remotest regions of the East, in all probability, ex- 
plored, before the torch of the soldier had touched the temple, or 
the energy of Titus had completed his trench. 

A word was dropped respecting the continuance of the desola- 
tion which would follow. " Jerusalem shall be trodden down of 
the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Never 
has that city ceased to be so trodden down, as you know, since 
u the abomination" made it desolate ; never did the flaming sword 
in Eden more effectually bar the fallen progenitors of men from 
returning to the garden than these potential words have barred 
the Jew from reinstatement at Jerusalem. Three hundred years 



124 



PKOPHECY. 



after they had fallen from the Saviour's lips, Julian, with all the 
resources of the empire in his hands, and the energy of heroic 
vigor in his soul, and the hatred of apostate conscience in his 
heart, and the alacrity of a million homeless Jews at his side, 
dared to countervail this oracle of the Crucified One ; and actually 
attempted to rebuild Jerusalem, and restore the Jews, for one 
monument, at least, of falsehood among the prophecies of Chris- 
tianity, — when balls of fire issued from the earth to blast the 
workmen, and fearful portents interfered on every hand to hinder 
and deter the impious determination — a fact which all contempo- 
raneous history, civil and ecclesiastical, pagan and Christian, will 
unite to establish. And call that strange phenomenon anything 
you please, or call its occurrence at all a sheer fabrication, which 
even Gibbon would not do, still we find the word of prophecy ful- 
filled, " quick and powerful," to the minutest incident of its utter- 
ance, and vindicated marvellously, in the naked fact, that a mighty 
preparation for a mighty work was instantly abandoned, and the 
last imperial foe was hurried away, from audacious battle with 
his dead Galilean, to perish at the meridian of life, by the lance 
of a Persian soldier. 

We would gladly pursue the outline of distinguished prophecies, 
already completed since the ascension of the Saviour, such as the 
dispersion of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles, the rise of 
Mohammedan fury and delusion — and especially the great event 
of Antichristian apostasy, minutely foretold in 2 Thess. ii., and so 
precisely accomplished in the whole history of Papal Rome. It 
would be worth the space and labor of many an entire lecture, to 
see how the very objections to Christianity, from its early corrup- 
tion and rapid degeneracy, prove the divinity of its origin ; by 
the fact, that these things were all foretold, with an exactness of 
delineation, which nothing but a supernatural inspiration could 
have dictated. But we have passed our limits ; and it remains 
to attempt a more direct and condensed exhibition of the argu- 
ment in anott.er lecture. 



PROPHECY. 



125 



II 

To say what is required of prophecy, as an argument for the 
truth of revealed religion, hardly becomes the ignorance of man. 
The amount of conviction, the manner and means of it, are for 
Him only to devise, who comprehends our need, and the right edu- 
cation of our fallen and disordered understandings. There is an 
extravagance of incredulity, in many minds, which it were not 
worth the cost of other important interests, in the plan of God's 
moral government, to convince. There would be insult to reason 
itself, in that redundancy of demonstration, which the unbelief of 
aversion demands — an unbelief, which, if it were convinced to- 
day, would be as uncertain as ever to-morrow. And how far the 
moral evidence should be furnished, to persuade the sincere and 
earnest man, at every grade of intellectual power, and leave un- 
reasonable incredulity to sink in its own abyss, of wretched inqui- 
etude and doubt, we dare not undertake to define. But we ven- 
ture, on this occasion, to affirm, that there is no conceivable 
requisition for evidence, on the part of a well-balanced mind, 
which is not satisfied, with the ample demonstrations of this ar- 
gument from prophecy. 

1. It is required^ that true prophecies claim to be such, when 
they are first delivered to men: not a bundle of rhapsodies, which 
may be labelled poetry, history, or prophecy, according to the 
fancy of men, or chance of tradition, or advent of some verisimili- 
tude. Let the title be clear. Let the claim be promulged in ad- 
vance. Let all generations know, that these are predictions, the 
credit of which is entirely staked on developments in the future, 
which ten thousand uncertainties hide from the eye of human 
foreknowledge. Now, this is eminently true of scripture prophe- 
cies ; as it would be superfluous to prove. Not only do they 
everywhere profess to anticipate the future, but they often apprize 
the reader, that they do it for the sake of argument, in order to 
prove the exclusive claims of this revelation ; arming, in this way, 
all men with an edge of scrutiny against them. How striking 
the contrast, in this particular, with that significant evasion, with 
which other vaticinations doff the title, until time shall have de- 
cided on the luck of their adventure. 



126 PKOPHECY. 

2. It is required, that these prophecies be so expressed^ as to 
be, in no proper sense, the cause of their own fulfilment. They 
must have some meaning, of course, to the anterior student; ex- 
citing in him hope, and energy, and comfort, as well as anxious 
investigation : but they must be sufficiently obscure, in the form 
of expression, or in regard to the manner and means of their ac- 
complishment, to preclude his own designing and direct oxertions 
from achieving it. Otherwise, free agency might be constrained; 
the event might follow the prediction, as effect follows the cause ; 
and prophecy would differ, only in the tense, from actual history. 
This perfection of enigma is peculiar to these inspired predictions: 
it could never be attained by man's contrivance. The Sibyl 
leaves, when tossed a little with the wind, were nonsense. The 
Delphic oracles, when articulate with future contingency, w T ere 
always ambiguous, and so artfully constructed, that they might 
be fulfilled in any one of two or more contrary events. How 
many, like Croesus, and like Pyrrhus, w T ere deceived, at the most 
critical moments of life; and destroyed, by the fallacious hope, 
which those cunning impostures had contrived, to please the 
votary, in return for his gift, and yet retain the plausibility of 
truthfulness, under any sort of circumstances in the future. But 
no such ambiguity is here. Definite and sure, these oracles are 
always a warrant for the faith of him who trusts them, which will 
never deceive his honest hope : and yet, no skill of interpretation 
can write out the precise accomplishment, before its own time. And 
the only disappointment which they have ever produced, has been 
inflicted on the presumption, that disregards this divine enigma, 
so inscrutable to man. The Jews, for instance, familiar with so 
many predictions clearly realized in their own history, came at 
length to interpret all prophecy in the light of past fulfilment: 
and obliterating the plain distinction, between terms of history 
and symbols of prophecy, their confident exegesis, of the great 
messianic burden of the Bible, became a tradition of fatal preju- 
dice, to the exercise, alike, of faith, and reason, and sense, when 
the true completion in its season arrived — a memorable warning 
for the dogmatism of every age, that would affect to decipher, 
what God has purposely hidden, for the hand of his own Al- 
mighty Providence, to work out, with wonder, to the observation 
of men. 

3. It is required, that the fulfilment remove all obscurity of 
sense from the prediction. WJ ile there is a secret mark of iden- 



PROPHECY. 



127 



tification, couched among the symbols of prophetical language, 
that always invites and rewards, without satisfying the ingenuous 
reader, before the accomplishment — "serving the threefold pur- 
pose, of being a blind to the incurious, a trap to the dogmatical, 
and an exercise of modesty, of patience, and of sagacity, to the 
wise" — there is always in the true fulfilment, the evolution of a 
test, which settles forever the solution of the sacred enigma. 
Look at the prophecies relating to the Saviour of men, and to 
every kingdom and metropolis of ancient times ; to the overthrow 
of Persia by Macedon ; the subsequent division of the Grecian 
empire, among the successors of Alexander ; the spread of the 
Roman arms, described by Moses and Daniel ; and the ultimate 
dissolution of that stupendous power; all foretold, with a skill of 
implication, which no sublunary intelligence could unravel, nor 
even the prophets who delivered them divine, beyond the use of 
adoring trust in the Providence of God ; but which now lies be- 
fore us, with all the specialties of history to be seen in its folds — 
completeness and precision of adjustment, among the metaphors, 
that rival the most graphic details of the chronicle itself. 

It is true, indeed, that ignorance may blur, in man's apprehen- 
sion, the most beautiful economy of God's wisdom. The drapery 
of symbols may not be rightly understood ; the deposition of 
history may not be faithfully gathered, and fairly collated ; the 
power of prejudice may cloud the most erudite mind with Egyp- 
tian darkness ; and there may be, at times, in the web of pro- 
phecy itself, a complexity of thread, through the long series of 
futurities, often foretold together, which the best learning and ex- 
perience are yet too immature to comprehend, as the scheme is 
but partly unfolded — these, and other considerations, may fully 
account for the disagreement among interpreters, respecting a few 
predictions, which have transpired already in events. 

4. It is required that i hese prophecies be manifold, in order 
that no chance may account for the completion of all ; and no 
ignorance, or oversight, may jeopard the force of this argument, 
by the waste to which we have just adverted. Any shrewd 
observer of the world might venture a prediction of some future 
event, from the tendency of causes at work in his day, the pro- 
gress of human development already observed, or even the whim- 
sey of wanton conjecture ; and among the myriad occurrences, in 
every age, it were strange if such adventure of prophecy would 
not be followed, sometimes, with striking coincidence of facts. 



128 



PROPHECY. 



Varro informs us, that he heard an augur in his day, Vettius 
Valens, assert, that the twelve vultures which appeared to Romu- 
lus, when he stood on the Palatine hill, contending with his 
brother Remus, respecting the name of the city they had agreed 
to build on the Tiber, signified twelve centuries, through which 
the Roman empire was destined to endure ; and history has re- 
corded the fact, that the empire, of which Rome was the centre 
and capital, was overthrown, almost exactly according to this 
expository presage, 500 years after it was given. 

Again, Seneca sung, (if he be the author of " Medea") the dis- 
covery of America, 1400 years before it occurred ; in the following 
general, but most remarkable language : — 

" venient annis 

Secula seris, quibus Oceanus 
Vincula rerum laxit, et ingens 
Pateat tellus, Tiphysque novos 
Detegat orbes ; nec sit terris 
Ultima Thule.' 

Again, it is said, that M. de Cazotte predicted, some years before 
1787, with much minuteness, to a large company of intelligent 
persons in Paris, the atrocities of the Reign of Terror in France — 
telling Condorcet that he would die in prison, of poison, admin- 
istered by his own hand, which actually happened — predicting, 
also, the fate of Louis XYI. and his Q,ueen, and persons are yet 
living, it is said, who heard these utterances distinctly given, 
before any one of them was yet fulfilled, and while the prophet 
was laughed at for his pains. It is well known, also, that tradi- 
tionary soothsayings are abundant in many places of Germany, 
Westphalia in particular, and all along the Rhine, some of which, 
it is said, have been remarkably accomplished, in the memorable 
agitations of 1848 and '49. And a learned Professor in Edin- 
burgh has even broached the hypothesis of a physical medium, 
between certain highly sensitive constitutions, and the near ap- 
proach of eventful things, in highly excited times. 

Yet what are all these scattered facts — most of them so much 
like guessing in the vagueness of their terms — although a thousand 
times better attested than they are, and a thousand times remoter 
from suspicion of being the cause of their own accomplishment, 
or being shaped by the mouth of tradition, as it suits the course 
of probabilities— compared with the vast array of particular pro- 
phecies in Scripture, not one of which has ever failed of fulfilment 



PROPHECY. 



129 



in its time ! Forget not the millions of falsified prediction and 
augury that are sunk on every side of them, when those "rari 
in gurgite nantes" are so flippantly proposed ! 

Not only are the prophecies of inspiration many and various in 
themselves, but they are, in all important cases, reiterated by 
many different prophets, at long intervals of separation, in the 
course of time ; thus making the first announcement,by the para- 
phrases of succeeding seers, a fixed and inflexible cognition, which 
no ingenuity of man could torture into correspondence with an 
ultimate event ; as might have been the case with a single utter- 
ance ; and as really is the case with the solitary sights of unin- 
spired prevision. 

Nor is it number and repetition alone, which defy the versatility 
of chance, and privacy of interpretation to enact a tithe of the 
accomplishment; but the dignity and importance of their import 
also — a public concernment, almost always ; which could never 
achieve its fulfilment in a corner ; embracing in the range of its 
wonderful extent, all the mighty monarchies of ancient time, the 
cities, the countries, the kings, the warriors, the people ; Pheni- 
cians, Egyptians, Idumeans, Arabians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, 
Persians, Greeks, Romans, as well as Jews ; and the w r hole mag- 
nitude of middle and modern history besides ; from the ruin of 
Pagan Rome, and the rise of Mohammedan imposition, to the 
downfall of Antichrist, and the reign of Millennial glory — all his- 
tory forecast in this epitome — with a greatness of particulars, 
which no philosophy of actual history could equal, in the choice ; 
and not one of the particulars ever taking back its gage, to drop 
from the oracle in convenient oblivion ; not one particular without 
its own minuteness of specialty, which neither man nor angel 
can elicit in advance, but which the complete event will recognize 
to demonstration. 

5. It is required, that these predictions, which would prove a 
revelation from God, be connected in system, and exhibit a 
scheme and scope of design, worthy of Him, whose infinite wis- 
dom, elsewhere, always appears in unity of purpose. If, instead 
of a few surprising coincidences, of a rival character, picked up, 
here and there, upon the tide of time, we should find them innu- 
merably more than we have reckoned, and more even than the 
prophecies of inspiration, yet, if they are all disconnected and 
aimless, while these are compact, and conspicuous for unity of 
aim, running through all ages, we might still make good the 

9 



130 



PROPHECY. 



demonstration of Divinity on these pages, and on these alone. 
More difficult would it be, for chance to account for ten related 
facts in a series, than for ten thousand facts without rela- 
tion or connection. Nay, more, should we concede, that every 
plausible response of heathen oracles, and every sagacious or 
lucky prognostication of any age, were genuine utterances of su- 
pernatural knowledge, yet if these predictions of the Bible are the 
only utterances of the kind, adduced for a particular purpose, and 
that purpose not only godlike in its meaning, but perfectly unique 
through all the successions and transmutations of time, the argu- 
ment stands against all competition. You never reject the testi- 
mony of an adequate number of unimpeachable witnesses in 
court, merely because there may be a multitude of men without, 
asserting a thousand particular facts, which have no connection 
with the case on hand, or the point at issue. Why then demur 
at the result of this converging deposition, which so many voices, 
throughout so many ages, harmoniously deliver, because forsooth, 
the world has been replete with other voices, equally mysterious 
and unearthly, yet all-discordant as the babblers on the plain of 
Shinar ? What boots it the sciolist, when he has gathered the 
whole magazine of emulous predictions, by pagan augury, tripod, 
or cave ; by the wise politician, the mystical monk, the delirious 
fanatic, or the mesmeric dreamer; since they are ruled altogether 
out of court, by the common law of evidence, because they have 
nothing to say, that is relevant on the suit of man's immortal 
aspirations — because, without the smallest injury to their preten- 
sions, they cannot witness anything, and much less agree to wit- 
ness anything — while here is an immense array of perfect agree- 
ment, in the most positive declaration that ever was made ; a 
redemption from sin, sorrow, and death, which no imagination of 
man had ever conceived; and the only religion of facts, doctrines, 
and morals, which this supernatural attestation was ever employed 
to establish ? 

The unity we have here, is not only one of positive testimony, 
which rival pedictions have never attempted, and one of internal 
concord in which every particular deposes something connected 
with the great subject of revelation, but one of progressive de- 
velopment, in which a mighty seminal truth is brought forth by 
each succeeding ray of prophetical announcement, until the 
manifestation fills earth and heaven with the grandeur of its com- 
plete significance. " The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of 



PKOPHECY. 



131 



projiheci/" He is the grand subject, sum, and centre : there is 
not a word in this great volume of prophetical wonder which does 
not relate to Him, in his person, character, or kingdom. 

Now, one prophecy such as we have thus far defined, would be 
sufficient to commend a revelation — would be itself a revelation ; 
and when hundreds of such prophecies on every variety of sub- 
ject, interesting and important to man, combine, without a contra- 
diction, to challenge our faith, we must concede there is some- 
thing supernatural in the claim. But when this great variety is 
all convergent and unique, each particular prediction radiating 
illustration upon all the rest, each past fulfilment sustaining the 
expectation of a future, and all, though scattered along scores of 
centuries in their track, ever pointing to a great refulgent centre, 
beaming with light, and love, and immortality, for man — who 
will compute the force of this demonstration, or doubt that the 
system is entirely from God, omniscient and omnipotent? 

Try the cavils and objections of infidelity by the touchstone of 
this peerless unity. 

Is it said, that other well-authenticated instances of successful 
augury and prophecy, in ancient and in modern times, are so in- 
explicable, that we may well decline investigating similar mys- 
teries in the Bible? We answer, that, because irregularities 
appear in every department of nature which cannot be explained, 
you might just as well decline the study of her laws, that cannot 
surpass her strange anomalies, either in number or consistency, 
more than the perfect prophecies of scripture surpass, in variety 
and system, those casual mysteries of soothsaying which could 
stand authenticated if the world had taken pains to search them 
out with the rigor of historical exactness. Far better say, that, 
because the comet is not traced with satisfaction through its 
eccentric flight in the abyss of heaven, therefore, we need not 
watch the planetary orbits, or care to investigate the ordinary 
movements of our solar system. Is it said, that man's free 
agency, as a moral creature, is subverted by the notion of such a 
particular and almighty exercise of Providence as the sure fulfil- 
ment of inspired prophecy involves? We answer, that, the freest 
agency of man is that which acts under the government of laws 
in the regular administration of a system ; and it is the casual 
and aimless prediction only, which could by irregular accomplish- 
ment, infringe upon his freedom. But when you see his destiny 
involved in the complications of such a system as this, a trans- 



132 



PROPjSECY. 



cript from the counsels of eternity, so full of grace, for the de- 
velopment of which the world itself is but a platfoiiu, and time a 
handmaid to unroll* its resolutions, we might better say, it is free- 
dom to will and act beyond the dictates of nature and reason, 
than beyond the purview of this influence. 

But tha double meaning, so prevalent in these predictions, we 
are told, is no better than the ambiguity of pagan oracles. This 
cavil, besides being logically unfair, is at once confuted by the 
view of that connection which binds together all ages and all 
events in one great consummation. Here, " the double sense" 
can never mean that either of two possible events may fulfil a 
prophecy, but that both of them must fulfil it. Nothing, in fact, 
more clearly bespeaks the authorship in God himself, than this 
very manifold ness in the fulfilment of his word, evincing that 
the true speaker must have had an infinite comprehension and 
disposal too, of agencies at work in the world, when he could 
frame a promise or a threat with such expression, as to embrace 
many similar events (while chiefly referring to but one) which 
would be effectuated by the most dissimilar means, and in the 
most diversified and unequal circumstances. Let the objector 
mark, that the great hypothesis on which we argue is the identity 
of authorship in prophecy and providence. God only could or- 
dain affinity between the deliverance from Egyptian bondage, 
and that from Babylonish captivity, and that from Syrian cruelty, 
and that from heathenish darkness, and that from Antichristian 
despotism ; and when we find that one primordial prophecy will 
include this whole kindred series of events to come, and a later 
one will make the first of the series when fulfilled an historical 
basis, for the metaphors with which the remaining mercies are 
predicted, and for the hope with which they are expected, must 
we not, so far from stumbling on a doubtfulness in the double 
sense, perceive that it is the very stamp of God's foreknowledge, 
as it is the earnest of his own unfailing faithfulness? Who will 
say, again, that the warning voice of Moses, when he foretold 
the terrible details of punishment, which would await the apos- 
tasy of Israel, was less divinely prophetic, because his word 
would suit a thousand dispersions of the Jews, which have oc- 
curred since it was uttered; or the proud elevation of " the 
stranger" in their land, either in the yoke of Chaldean, or Syrian, 
or Roman, or Turkish oppression ; or " the tender and delicate 
woman" eating her own offspring, in the straitness of the siege, 



PROPHECY. 



133 



when it was accomplished in the siege of Samaria, and in the 
siege of Jerusalem, nearly a thousand years asunder, and the first 
more than a thousand years after the prophet ; or the insult and 
wrong, to which they would be doomed, when these were done 
continually, from the days of Nebuchadnezzar, to those of 
Frederick the Great in Prussia? 

Without a thread of system, such oracular skill had been in- 
finitely beyond the forecast of Apollo, that never framed even an 
equivocation, without appearances of near probability : but when 
we see it travel down a pathway of development, in every age, 
grouping sequences, of more and more definite and brilliant at- 
testation ; by which an honest faith is nourished, from the first 
apprehension of an ancient promise, till the last exultation of 
joy, when " the mystery of God is finished" and " the headstone 
is brought forth with shoutings" — its double sense is only double 
demonstration, that the inspiration of the Almighty must have 
given it the very words. So thought Lord Bacon : and speaking 
of these prophecies, considered in their double sense, he says, 
"They are of the nature of the Author, with whom a thousand 
years are as one day ; and therefore, they are not fulfilled punc- 
tually at once, but have a springing and germinant accomplish- 
ment, throughout many ages, though the height and fulness of 
them may refer to one age." 

Thus, also, is explained the hyperbole, with which the prophets 
describe comparatively small events, near to be fulfilled, in terms 
that seem to be out of all proportion to their importance. It is the 
splendor of an ultimate event, in the chain of homogeneous 
benefits, of which the nearer one, however humble, is an earnest 
and precursor, that suffuses, in this way, the rapt prevision of the 
seer. Had there been a prophet commissioned a century since, 
as in the old theocracy, to counsel the governors of Virginia, in 
times of fear and trouble, and promise them a triumph over 
French and savage hostilities upon the border, portraying the 
peace and prosperity which would follow such a vindication — 
how naturally would the prophet, on the supposition of a divine 
afflatus, revealing the future, indefinitely, in regard to all events 
of the same prosperous kind, describe the proximate deliverances 
predicted for the colony, in a style of magniloquent expression, 
borrowed from the ulterior glories of this great Republic, in which 
the nascent commonwealth he came to comfort, would bear a 
great proportion. Just in this way was many a temporal mercy 



134 



PKOPHECY. 



promised to the visible church, under the old dispensation ; the 
ultimate and crowning mercy under Christ peering on the 
prophet's soul, with enrapturing and often abrupt captivation, 
which he himself did not fully understand. 

And why should any man of literary taste and culture object to 
the secondary sense in prophecy, when it is the charm of genius 
in the earth-born inspirations of epic and dramatic poetry ? Take 
from the iEneid of Virgil a pervading allusion to Augustus Caesar, 
and what an insipidity of import is left to the whole design, as 
well as many a most beautiful passage. Take from the Divina 
Commedia of Dante the political factions of Florence, and what 
a crude conceit would be many a terrible coruscation. Take 
from the Fairy Qjieen of Spenser the reign and court of Eliza- 
beth, and what remains to give it soul or immortality ? There 
is, in short, through all the best creations of human genius, an 
intense endeavor after that very perfection which infidelity repu- 
diates in the prophecies of celestial inspiration — a double sense— 
a primary import, which profits and pleases, most of all, because 
it bears to the understanding a secondary import, on which the 
whole production rests, as an ultimate basis of unity and mean- 
ing, without which the book would never have been written, and 
would soon cease to be read or understood. 

It is this central unity and perfect system, again, which will 
explain the confinement of prophecy to one nation, and that one 
comparatively obscure in secular history, undistinguished by arts 
or arms, commerce or wealth, though seated in the most conspicu- 
ous place upon the globe of ancient geography. The gaze of all 
men must be fixed on this peculiar people, for one thing alone : 
"To them," said Philo, "was intrusted the prophetical office for 
all mankind." Had these prophecies been scattered among many 
different nations, how impossible would it have been to see the 
beautiful connection and convergent meaning, which give them 
all their true significance : or had they been imparted to a people 
renowned for learning, like the Greeks, or political greatness, like 
the Latins, how much would they have been overlooked and neg- 
lected in the groves of the academy, the bustle of senates, and the 
turmoil of camps. But imparted to one people, whose whole des- 
tiny was the conservation of this lone deposit, how comprehen- 
sively might all men see the unity and truth of revealed religion, 
when its light was matured at length for universal promulgation, 



PROPHECY". 



135 



and its slowly concentered sun broke forth, like the gathered light- 
ning of heaven, to shine from one end of the world to the other. 

6. It is required, that these prophecies be commensurate with 
all time : the past, the present, and the future, being covered 
alike with the scope of their full annunciation. However per- 
fectly connected all events may be in this prophetical economy, 
no experience or learning can ever enable any man to foretell the 
recurrence of similar events : for this mighty system, whose 
centre is Christ, has only one cycle for the world to see, and that, 
the duration of the world itself: so that there is no repetition of 
the same things, in a series of cycles, as some have vainly ima- 
gined ; but all is progress, in a line of plainer and plainer develop- 
ment, until time shall be no longer. 

You ask for miracles continued. Here they are — without dis- 
turbing nature — in the continued accomplishment of ancient 
prophecy ; which will go on to confirm the truth of our holy reli- 
gion, with new demonstrations, till the end of the world. Nor 
will these consist in new disclosures, merely, of old attestations, 
dug from the dust, or read from the hieroglyphic, by Layards, 
Champollions, and Gliddons ; but in mighty deeds, which are yet to 
be done by the faithful Providence of God — the downfall of Anti- 
christ from his throne of spiritual despotism — the conversion of 
the Jews from their hardened infidelity — the extension of the 
gospel over all benighted paganism — the return of peace, and 
unity, and love to the whole distracted body of th@ faithful. 
These are some of the magnificent things which prophecy has 
promised, to the hope of our day ; and all of them, you will say, 
quite improbable to the anticipations of reason. What, then, 
must you think of a religion which would venture to promise 
them — in an open Bible, scattered abroad over mountain and val 
ley, as dew-drops of the morning? Either it has nothing to lose 
in losing veracity, or it is more than human. Surely, no religion 
of man would hazard what ours has gained, and possesses, on 
such obvious uncertainties, for such prospective advantages. 
Where are all your soothsayers now? Or, have they left a frag- 
ment of vaticination on this earth, to bide the trial of a coming 
accomplishment? Why, like Elijah of old, are we left alone at 
this altar, to call down this fire, and forecast the future time, 
through all the salient points, and eventful epochs, that are to till 
the remaining volumes of the world's great history? "Lively 
oracles," indeed, they are, ever glowing in the heart of piety, ever 



136 



PKOPHECY. 



gliding in the hand of Providence. Ask me not for living prophets 
on the very eve of these great changes. We would rather have 
the ancient — whose expression, like old wine, is all the better for a 
voyage over many billows of intervening revolution, and half the 
globe, in the time of its duration. Tell me not that Augustan 
civilization saw the end of them, and with its searching glance 
of light put them to silence forever. Precisely then -they broke 
the silence of many centuries, and ceased not their proclama- 
tions until the keystone was fixed in the arch, and all remaining 
time was spanned with its extension. 

7. It is required, that they be philanthropic and benign. 
When the Cumaean Sibyl came to Tarquin with her books, which 
were nine in number, she offered to sell them for a price which 
the tyrant deemed enormous, and refused. She disappeared im- 
mediately, and destroyed three books; and then came back, de- 
manding as much for the remaining six as for the nine. It was 
again refused, and she retired in wrath to burn three more ; and 
then returned to ask as much for the remaining three as for the 
whole original number — thus withholding from Rome, and from 
the world, w T hat the gods had commissioned her to write, because 
she could not obtain her price in gold. This legend illustrates, 
far too faintly, the notorious venality and avarice of all heathen 
oracles. The poor man could never obtain responses from the 
Delphic Apollo. The rich man was swindled by a hundred 
frauds, enjoining new lustrations, additional sacrifices, and cost- 
lier gifts ; and after all, dismissing the tantalized victim without 
an answer, as often as the case admitted of no safe equivocation. 
\nd even when the tripod, or the cave, did respond with its best 

riiculatioh ; and the pillaged votary obtained the most formal 
and categorical answer to his anxious query j what hope was 
soothed, what misery assuaged, what virtue strengthened, and 
what vice reformed? Only the cruel projects of ambition, or the 
horrid necessities of war and crime, came to those impure retreats 
for counsel and encouragement. 

How different the prophets of the living God. No bribe could 
buy a Balaam, when filled with the impulse of their true inspira- 
tion. Not even a servant to their persons, dared accept a trifling 
present, from the richest beneficiary, without being blasted with 
leprosy for life. How calm, and kind, and frank, and dignified, as 
well as earnest and disinterested ! And how pure the morality 
always inculcated. The primary object of inspired prophecy, was 



PROPHECY. 



137 



the publication of absolute and eternal principles of truth and 
righteousness, as they are centred and sanctioned in the Lord 
Jesus Christ: and disclosures of futurity were added, because He 
was future, in respect to incarnation, and because these were 
needful, in every age, to secure a credit for the lessons of redeem- 
ing truth. Like the miracles of Christ, they were twice blessed ; 
they always had a present benefit to work, while founding a solid 
deposition for the faith of future ages ; always some hope to 
cherish, or sadness to cheer — some oppression to rebuke, or wick- 
edness to warn, while furnishing the latest days, with bulwarks 
of evidence for the truth of this holy religion — which time was 
deputed to build out and up, until she herself would find a sepul 
chre, in some crypt of their deep foundations. 

8. They must, after all, transcend the requisitions of human 
reason. We have now gone over, as we think, all the conditions, 
which man could dictate, for the full persuasion of his mind, that 
prophecy is divine and supernatural, and that, therefore, the re- 
ligion it authenticates must be of God, true, and holy, and all 
important. The claim must be woven on its face, and published 
in advance — the terms must be, in the main, so purely enigmati- 
cal, as to bar any conscious causation of their own accomplish- 
ment; and yet significant enough, meanwhile, to answer the 
present need of faith and hope. — There must be some mark of 
specialty concealed among the terms, which the fulfilment will 
recognize, beyond a doubt, wherever there is knowledge enough to 
read the s}mibols, and observe aright the facts of history. — There 
must be great number and variety ; so that no chance may ac- 
count for the completion of all, and no failure of recognition, in 
some cases, jeopard the utility and force of the whole conclusion. 
They must be connected in a system, which is worthy of infinite 
design, in which they have a great scheme to develop ; where 
every particular instance will shed light on every other instance, 
and the most occult, and indirect, and secondary meaning, may 
be made the ultimate strength and beauty of the whole, They 
must always grow in demonstration, and gratify the demand for 
marvels, in every age, miracle without suspending nature's laws; 
which they continually work, as new fulfilments of ancient 
prophecy occur. They must be ever benignant, disinterested 
and pure, without a single taint of selfishness, or meanness, or 
corruption in morals. These are your requisitions ; and all of 
them reasonable, considering the high claims of my subject ; and 



138 



PKOPHECY. 



are they not more than met, in the exuberant perfections of in- 
spired prophecy ? 

It may be, that I have failed, for want of time, or ability, or 
both, to meet objections rightly, with that ample and adequate 
solution, which the subject fairly affords. But I am sure, your 
faith would not be satisfied, if I had succeeded in relieving reason 
from her whole embarrassment with prophecy: for its very nature 
implies an immediate communication, of an infinite mind to finite 
minds, and therefore some incomprehensibility, which, for us to 
remove, would be the greatest failure that could occur, in such 
investigation. It would be not to solve a problem, in the way of 
lodging light in the soul ; but to dissolve a link, which connects 
our theme itself with the source of all light and knowledge. It 
cannot be from God, and yet circumscribed by man. The only 
discussion, that dares to tread the whole circumference of its con- 
nections, is absurd Neology — which always begs the question, in 
order to deny it — which would quench the sun, at meridian day, 
for no other reason, than because it is fixed in heaven, and take 
a lamp through the universe, because it is portable to " the crit- 
ical feeling." 

We may not comprehend, how the soul of man is subject to the 
heavenly afflatus ; how the peculiarity of each prophet's genius 
and taste, should be suffered to tinge the pure revelation of God by 
his mouth ; or how he could faithfully and fully enunciate times 
and events which he did not himself understand. We may not 
comprehend, why the centre of prophecy was fixed just where it 
is, in the progressions of time ; why the promise of God to the 
Fathers, was placed so dimly and distantly before them, and the 
triumphs of the great accomplishment with us, have been so par- 
tial, and slow, and clouded in prospect — a thousand minor em- 
barrassments like these may spring up, which this man and that 
may answer or not, to his own satisfaction, and that of others. 
But we answer them all, with the simple averment, that, were 
they a hundred-fold more embarrassing and dark, they would only 
confirm the conviction of well-regulated reason, with the crown- 
ing demonstration they afford, of God's finger — whose traces can- 
not be perfectly explained, unless the finite can measure the in- 
finite, or human reason, like the Aeon of Valentinus, in her vain 
ambition to comprehend the Almighty, should propagate a Demi- 
urge from heaven, whose hand detailed the Jewish prophets, and 
whose work of perversion, and prophecy, alike, the Christ came 



PROPHECY. 



139 



only to destroy. Wicked absurdity, or silly fable, must always be 
the refuge of that proud wisdom, which doubts the attestation of 
divinity, because the signet of Omniscience is not altogether like 
our own ; because a part of his ways must be the limit of his 
condescension ; and because he would incite our trust and ad- 
miration, through a whole eternity, by the simple and sublime 
conviction, that " we shall know, if we follow on to know the 
Lord." 



Stttjwritij nf tjie hittb Cattim, 

AND 

THE INTEGRITY OF THE SACRED TEXT 

TWO LECTURES. 



BY 

KEY. F. S. SAMPSON, D.D., 

PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE IN UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 



I. 



Respected Audience — 

With hearty good-will and real pleasure, and yet not with- 
out feelings of sadness, I revisit the scenes of one of the most 
delightful periods of my life. It was here that I received my first 
lessons in science from venerated instructors, most of whom have 
gone to other fields ; some of them — alas, how soon and sud- 
denly ! — to 

" That undiscovered country, from whose bourn 
No traveller returns." 

I came here a babe in Christ. The first five years of my new and 
better life were spent within these classic walls. Sacred hours, and 
sacred spots, and Christian friends, and youthful associates, are 
fondly remembered still. I would thank God that, through my 
brief life, the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places : but I 
have seen few better days than I have seen amid these scenes 
and friends of my youth. 

Amongst these especially dear were those with whom, when as 
yet there was here no Ambassador of God, no Sanctuary, no 
Bible Society, no Sabbath-school, — I might almost say, no Sab- 
bath, — in our lonely dormitory I often met, and spake, and prayed 
for better days to our beloved Alma Mater. The days came 
sooner than we had believed. God was with us. The little seed 
germinated and grew : and watered and fostered by his care, it 
became a tree with goodly branches and some precious fruit. I 
rejoice that it still lives and flourishes ; and count it one of the 
most delightful privileges of my life, to return in my maturer, 
though scarcely realized manhood, and endeavor to contribute 
something towards helping this tree to strike deeper its roots, to 
spread wider its branches, and to bear more abundant and yet 
more precious fruit. 

I am called to maintain before you the authority of the Sacred 
Canon and the integrity of the Sacred Text, as part of a 



144 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



Course of Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity. The sub- 
ject is both copious and difficult, and might well have demanded 
me to enter immediately on its discussion. But I could not deny 
myself, and you, I trust, will excuse these brief introductory 
reminiscences. I proceed now to the duty assigned me. 

I propose, then, so to present the history and authority of the 
Sacred Scriptures, and the history, preservation, and integrity of 
the text, as to show them to be the Word of God, and Chris- 
tianity to be divine. In order to make the argument as short, 
and yet as comprehensive and conclusive as possible, I shall en- 
deavor to maintain a series of propositions, which involve all 
that is essential to a just view of the subject. 

I. My first proposition is, that the Books of the New Testament 
are genuine : that is, they were written, as they profess to have 
been written, by the Apostles and attendants on the Apostles of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Christianity at our day is a great fact, wide-spread over the 
world. We trace it back through every generation to the days 
of Augustus Ceesar, and find its origin in a crucified Jew. 
Tacitus and Suetonius, both reliable historians who flourished in 
little more than fifty years after the time, give unequivocal testi- 
mony on the subject. The former tells us, in his Annals,* that 
" Christus, in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death as a crim- 
inal by the procurator, Pontius Pilate : that he originated a re- 
ligionf in Judea, which, though checked for a while, broke out 
again and spread through Judea, and soon extended to Rome : 
that his followers from him were called Christians, and were 
very numerous at Rome in the reign of Nero (some thirty years 
after his death) : that here they were exceedingly hated as crimi- 
nal, and yet were subjected by the emperor, in order to avert 
from himself the infamy of having commanded the city to be set 
on fire, and to gratify his own wanton cruelty rather than to pro- 
mote the public welfare, to such grievous and numerous suffer- 
ings as to excite the commiseration of the people." The latter, 
in his life of Nero,£ says, that "the Christians were punished, — a 
sort of men of a new and magical (or pernicious§) superstition." 
Upon the testimony of Tacitus, the infidel Gibbon remarks : 
"The most skeptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of 
this extraordinary fact, II and the integrity of this celebrated pas- 

* Tacit. Annal. xv. 44. \ Superstitio. % Sueton. Nero. xvi. 

§ Maleficae. f That is, the persecution of the Christians. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



145 



sage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and 
accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Nero 
inflicted on the Christians, ' a sect of men who had embraced a 
new and criminal superstition.' The latter may be proved by 
the consent of the most ancient manuscripts ; by the inimitable 
character of the style of Tacitus ; by his reputation, which 
guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud; and by 
the purport of his narration, which accused the first Christians 
of the most atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they pos- 
sessed any miraculous or even magical powers above the rest of 
mankind." Pliny, the younger, who lived about the same time, 
while Governor of Pontus and Bithynia (a.d. 107), wrote a 
letter* to Trajan, the emperor, requesting advice as to the proper 
manner of proceeding against the Christians. From this letter 
we learn, that "they were now (some seventy years after Christ) 
very numerous in those regions, embracing every age and rank 
and sex, and pervading, not only the cities, but the lesser towns 
and the open country also : that they were brought before the 
civil tribunals, and tried for no crime but their Christianity, and 
punished for their obstinacy if they refused to abjure it: that it 
appeared from these investigations, that they were wont to meet 
together on a stated day, and sing among themselves a hymn to 
Christ as God, and to eat a meal in common, but without any 
disorder; and to bind themselves by a solemn oath (sacramento), 
not to commit wickedness, but to abstain from theft, and robbery, 
and adultery, and falsehood, and unfaithfulness ; while they 
steadfastly refused to invoke the gods, and to make supplication 
before the emperor's image : and that by their influence the tem- 
ples had become almost forsaken, the sacred solemnities inter- 
mitted, and victims went begging for purchasers :" — all which, you 
cannot but observe, while, like the other passages, it proves the 
remarkable spread of Christianity and the cruel persecutions of 
the early Christians, throws not a little light on the atrocious 
crimes of which Gibbon speaks as charged by Tacitus upon them, 
and on the pernicious character which Suetonius ascribes to the 
new superstition. 

Now it is every way probable that one who had successfully 
founded such a society, would, either by his own hands or the 
hands of his more intimate and chosen disciples, give out his doc- 
trines and precepts in writing. It is every way probable that 
* Plin. Ep. b. x. ep. 9t 
10 



146 



THE AUTHOEITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 



such writings would be highly valued by all his followers : and 
that as the sect multiplied and spread, copies of these writings 
would also be multiplied and spread ; and that they would be 
carefully preserved, and constantly appealed to, as the standard 
of opinion and practice acknowledged by all of the new persua- 
sion. 

Our New Testament Canon contains no book that professes to 
have been written by Christ. It consists, as you know, of five 
Historical Books, twenty- one Epistolary, and one Prophetical. 
Of the Historical Books, four, called Gospels, are ascribed to 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and contain brief histories of 
the birth, doctrines, works, death, and resurrection of Christ; and 
the ffth, called the Acts, and also ascribed to Luke, contains an 
account of Christ's ascension to heaven, of the early propaga- 
tion of his principles, and organization of his church by his dis- 
ciples amongst both Jews and Gentiles, and of the miraculous con- 
version and call, and subsequent labors of Paul till his imprison- 
ment at Rome. Of the Epistles, fourteen are ascribed to Paul; 
and the remaining seven, called Catholic, are ascribed one to 
James, two to Peter, three to John, and one to Jude. These were 
all written on different occasions, to different churches and indi- 
viduals, and contain further developments of the doctrines and 
precepts which Christ would have to govern his Church. The 
only Prophetical Book, the Revelation, is ascribed to John, the 
author of the Gospel and the three Epistles. Of these authors, 
all were Apostles of Christ, duly commissioned to go forth and 
teach, and do mighty works in his name, excepting two, Mark 
and Luke. These, according to the books themselves, and all 
ancient tradition, were attendants on the Apostles, — or, as the 
Fathers called them, apostolical men, who wrote with the knowl- 
edge and approbation of the Apostles. 

While, then, none of the books profess to have been written by 
Christ, all of them are handed down to us as from the Apostles 
and apostolical men. From what I have already said, it must 
be admitted that there is no presumption against their genuineness ; 
but the presumption is decidedly in their favor. It is obvious, 
from the very inspection of the books, that they were written at 
different times and places, to different churches and individuals, 
on various doctrinal and practical subjects, just as circumstances 
called for them. At first, therefore, of course, they were separate, 
and scattered over different countries, in the possession of the dif- 



THE AUTHORITY OP THE SACRED CANON. 147 



ferent churches and individuals to whom they were originally- 
sent. The collection of them into one volume was a subsequent 
work, — upon which we may remark, in passing, the books were, 
in no degree, dependent for any authority to which they might be 
justly entitled. All churches, especially those which had been 
founded by the Apostles, and perhaps had received of their wri- 
tings, such as those of Rome,* Corinth, Thessalonica, Phiiippi, 
Ephesus, Colossal, Galatia, and all private Christians, who could 
defray the expense, especially those who had been conversant with 
the Apostles, would exert themselves to obtain copies of all such 
writings as were either composed or sanctioned by them, as au- 
thoritative exponents of the principles of the great Founder of 
their faith. In this way, there would soon be found in the hands 
of different churches and private individuals more or less complete 
collections of the Sacred Books. Some of the books, we may sup 
pose, would come more slowly into general circulation than oth- 
ers : — such, for example, as were very brief and comparatively 
unimportant; such as were sent to private persons, and therefore 
were less known ; such as were very obscure, and therefore not 
so much read. And for this very reason that they had at first 
less circulation, were less known, and consequently less quoted, — 
as well as for other reasons, — we may suppose that they would 
afterwards be more or less doubted by churches and private per- 
sons, who desired to have only the genuine works of the Apostles 
and such as were endorsed by them. After due time, however, 
and after full inquiry, to which the interest that was felt in the 
books would naturally prompt, the general consent would become 
settled on the books which ought to be received as genuine: and 
thus the Canon of the Sacred Books would finally become fixed 
and acknowledged in the church. — What we have here hypotheti- 
cally imagined, is abundantly confirmed by a careful examina- 
tion of the books themselves, and by the statements of those who 
lived and wrote nearest to the times of the Apostles. The result, 
early attained, was, that the books which we now have were the 
genuine works of the Apostles and their attendants who wrote 
with their sanction. 

These prefatory remarks will prepare the way for the evidence 
which I shall now exhibit c f the genuineness of our New Testa- 
ment Canon. I shall appeal to the same kind of testimony that 

* The founders of the churches at Rome and Colossreare not known. The former 
certainly, and probably the latter, enjoyed the ministrations of Paul. 



148 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



we appeal to, in order to establish the genuineness of all other 
books that have come down to us from antiquity. I shall appeal 
not to the decisions of General Councils, or to any man, or any set 
of men, as invested with authority from heaven to declare what 
books proceeded from Apostles, and what from uninspired men : 
I expressly deny that there ever was any such council or other 
human tribunal, invested with authority from God to settle this 
question, otherwise than by the evidence which may be fairly ad- 
duced to prove the genuineness or the spuriousness of all other 
ancient books. I shall appeal to the marks of genuineness which 
are found in the books themselves, and to the testimony of those, 
whether friends or foes, who lived nearest to the times of the 
writers, and w T ho, therefore, had the best opportunities of knowing 
what they wrote. 

A. I adduce, then, first, the internal testimony. Examine the 
books themselves, and you find 

1. The language and style such as altogether to favor their 
genuineness. The language clearly shows that they emanated 
from Jews who spoke Greek, while the difference in style proves 
beyond all doubt, that they proceeded from different authors. 

After the conquests of Alexander the Great, the various dialects 
of the Greek became, as you know, mingled, and this mixed or 
common (xoivify dialect, as it was called, was extensively diffused 
over the East. We have the most satisfactory testimony, espe- 
cially from Josephus, that many cities in Palestine were, in large 
part, inhabited by Greeks. Jews too, who were born in foreign 
parts and spoke Greek, frequently visited the land and city and 
temple of their fathers. The Herods did no little to innovate 
Grecian customs ; and it would seem, that, while the Greek was 
the court-language of the Romans in the East, even the Jewish 
Rabbins were not unfavorable to its use. While, therefore, th* 
Syro-Chaldaic, or Hebrew, as it is called in our New Testament 
was the vernacular tongue of the Jews who resided in Palestine 
Greek was certainly very extensively spoken as the language of 
commerce. But the Greek thus learnt, from the intercourse oi 
common life, not from books, and spoken by Jews residing in Pal- 
estine, must largely partake of the idiom of their native tongue. 
From the Roman dominion too over the country, and the exten- 
sive and easy intercourse that was then carried on with the East 
and the different parts of the Roman Empire, we would expect 
some traces of the Latin and other languages. Such precisely is 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



149 



the language of the New Testament. It is the common Greek 
dialect current at the time, of which Attic was the base, largely 
colored by the Hebrew, or Syro-Chaldaic, which was vernacular 
to the writers, and exhibiting just such other foreign corruptions 
as we might expect to find in such writings.* 

All acknowledge the diversity of style in the different books. 
Matthew's style is very different from that of Luke, John's from 
Paul's, James' from Peter's. The style, too, corresponds strikingly 
with the education, character, and habits of the several writers, 
as far as we know them. Matthew and Mark write in the plain, 
simple style of unpolished men, whose object is truth, not to var- 
nish a tale : John in the simple, but smooth, flowing style of confi- 
dence and affection. Luke exhibits more of educational culture ; 
while Paul shows the fire and energy of true genius and strong 
powers, melted and inspirited with the grace of the gospel. James 
is sententious and ornate, Peter earnest, and Jude vehement. 

We have, therefore, in these books, precisely the peculiarities of 
language and all the diversities of style, which we should have 
expected from just such authors, living at that period, and in 
those countries. We discover also 

2. Strong marks of genuineness in the circumstantiality of the 
narratives, and the multitude of minute allusions to existing cus- 
toms and relations, which are found more or less in all the books. 

I cannot here, without going into detail, which the occasion 
does not allow, do more than indicate the nature of the argument. 
I regret this the more, because it is only by such details that the 
full strength of the argument can be exhibited.! Suffice it, how- 
ever, to say, that the writers show an easy and familiar acquaint- 
ance with the times, which proves them to be, as the authors of 
these books profess to have been, contemporaneous with the 
events. No man after them was sufficiently acquainted with 
the times to have wrought into his fictitious narrative such mul- 
tiplied and accurate allusions and statements. They freely give 
dates, places, persons, circumstances ; and refer to the social, 
civil, religious, political, geographical, and historical relations of 
the times, with a readiness and profusion which are possible only 
to contemporaneous authors. There is none of that generality 
and conflict with the existing relations of the time, as ascertained 
from other reliable sources, which so often serve to detect and 

* See Winer, Gramraatik d. neutest. Sprachidioms, § § 1, 2, 3, 4. 
f See this well done, Hug's Introduction to the U". T. (Fosdick's Translation) § § 3, 
4, 5. 



150 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 



demonstrate forgeries of later writers. Abounding as the allusions 
do on almost every page, all our researches into antiquity serve 
but to illustrate and confirm them. 

Now I do not assert that the internal testimony alone could 
demonstrate the genuineness of all the books. But I do not hesi- 
tate to affirm that the books, as a whole, contain as strong inter- 
nal marks of the age to which they belong, as the book of any 
other ancient author or authors whatever. We have no con- 
temporary testimony to the history of Herodotus, still less to the 
works of Homer. But they have strong internal testimony, 
and there is no external testimony against them ; and hence 
their antiquity, and the genuineness of the former at least, are 
now universally admitted. In the case of the book before us, the 
testimony is stronger and still more decisive. The language is 
the Greek, of a particular age and region, and all the minute cir- 
cumstantial allusions are allusions to the relations and customs 
of times and countries, than which none others are better known 
to us in ancient history. What single forger of the second cen- 
tury, — and later it would be absurd to suppose, — could have writ- 
ten so many books in so many different styles, so peculiar in their 
matter, and abounding with so many minute references to the 
relations of a former period 1 What combination of men could 
have done it, and the thing not be known and duly noted in his- 
tory? How is it that the men of that age allowed themselves to 
be thus amazingly imposed on? And if it be allowed that they 
were written in the period to which w 7 e refer them, why attribute 
them to other authors ? Who so likely to write them as the fol- 
lowers of Christ? And amongst these, who so properly with the 
authority w T hich these writers claim for themselves, as those who 
attended personally on his instructions and ministry, and w T ere 
by him commissioned to go out and instruct others? 

B. I proceed now to lay before you the external evidence of 
the genuineness of these books. Here again I have to regret 
that I cannot give you more and f uller quotations from ancient 
writers, both Christian and infidel, so that you might receive the 
just impression of the argument. My time allows me to do little 
more than present an abstract of the more important testimony. 

1. I begin with the testimony of those w T ho lived, wholly or in 
part, in the very age of the Apostles, and were more or less con- 
versant with them, and, therefore, are commonly called Apostoli- 
cal Fathers. These are Barnabas, of Cyprus, frequently men- 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 151 



tioned in the New Testament as a co-laborer of Paul; Clement, 
who is also mentioned as a fellow-laborer of Paul, afterwards 
Bishop of Rome ; Hennas, most probably the same who is saluted 
by Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans ; Ignatius, Bishop of An- 
tioch, in Syria, where he is said to have been ordained by Peter ; 
Poly carp, a disciple of John, ordained by him Bishop of Smyrna, 
where he died a martyr; and Papias, the companion of Poly- 
carp, and possibly conversant with the Apostle John. 

Of these we have only a few writings and fragments preserved. 
The Shepherd of Hennas nearly equals all the rest ; but, unfor- 
tunately, it is of such a character as allowed him to quote the 
New Testament but little. Yet in one and another of these we 
find nearly all the books in our New Testament Canon quoted or 
alluded to — although generally not by name. The laborious and 
cautious Dr. Lardner has carefully collected and weighed their 
statements ; * from him I take these results : — In Barnabas the 
allusions are few, and not so clear. Clement, of Rome, expressly 
ascribes 1st Corinthians to Paul, and more or less clearly quotes 
or alludes to Matthew, Mark, Luke, Romans, 2d Corinthians, 
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st Thessalonians, 
1st and 2d Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, James, 1st and 2d Peter. 
Hennas alludes to Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st 
Corinthians, Ephesians, James, and Revelation. Ignatius ex- 
pressly ascribes Ephesians to Paul, and makes plain allusions to 
the Gospels of Matthew and John, and probably Luke, to the 
Acts, Romans, 1st and 2d Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1st 
Thessalonians, 2d Timothy, 1st Peter, 1st and 3d John. Poly- 
carp plainly ascribes Philippians to Paul, and quotes Matthew, 
Luke, 1st Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1st and 2d Thes- 
salonians ; and makes undoubted references to Acts, Romans, 1st 
and 2d Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, 1st and 2d Timothy, 
1st Peter, 1st John, and probably Hebrews, doubtful ones to Colos- 
sians and Jude. Papias bears express testimony to Matthew 
and Mark, quotes 1st Peter, and 1st John, probably refers to Acts, 
and received Revelation. 

I am well aware that a more recent and skeptical criticism has 
discarded, or questioned, very many of these supposed quotations 
and allusions. But, after making every deduction that can rea- 
sonably be claimed, it remains, that in the brief writings and 
fragments of these few Apostolical Fathers which have descended 
* See his works (Lond. ed.) vol. i. p. 283 seq. iii. p. 99 seq. 



152 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



to us, we find nearly all the books of our New Testament quoted 
or alluded to: — not indeed, generally, so as to determine the 
authors ; but so as to show that the books were in existence, and 
were known and read and appreciated by contemporaneous wri- 
ters, and those to whom they wrote. Conversant as these writers 
were with the Apostles, they could not thus have received and 
used these books, unless they had believed that they were truly 
from them. Neither would it seem that they thus recognized any 
other books that are not in our Canon. 

2. We descend a little later into the second century, and pass- 
ing by others whose testimony would help us, we examine the 
writings of Justin Martyr, a.d. 140 ; of Irenaius, a.d. 178 ; of 
Clement of Alexandria, a.d. 194 ; and of Tertullian, a.d. 200. 
The first of these was a native of Palestine, a man of learning 
and a traveller. The second was a native of Asia, acquainted 
with Polycarp, and Bishop of Lyons in Gaul. The third was a 
learned president of the celebrated catechetical school at Alexan- 
dria, in Egypt. The fourth was a presbyter of Carthage, and a 
man of liberal learning. 

Like the Apostolical Fathers who preceded them, none of these 
have given us catalogues of the Sacred Books. But they make 
so many statements respecting them and their authors, and so 
freely quote them and allude to them as sacred and authoritative 
Scriptures, that we might, with goodly satisfaction, make out the 
Canon of the New Testament from them alone. I am sorry that 
I have not time to quote them at length : but I am compelled to 
content myself with the statement of the substance and the most 
important points of their testimony. Justin tells us that the 
Memoirs or Records of the Apostles and their companions, — 
plainly meaning our four Gospels, which only he received, — were 
read and expounded in the assemblies of Christians for divine 
worship on the Sabbath day. Irenaeus says expressly, that there 
were but four Gospels, — the very ones that we now have In 
divers passages they both quote these, and many other of the 
Sacred Books. Clement, likewise testifies to the four Gospels of 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John : refers Acts to Luke ; thirteen 
Epistles to Paul, omitting only Philemon : quotes of the Catholic 
Epistles all but James, 2 Peter, and 3 John : and ascribes Reve- 
lation to John, the Apostle. Tertullian, also, received but the 
four Gospels, of Matthew and John who, he says, were Apostles, 
and of Mark and Luke, who were apostolical men: refers Acts 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



153 



to Luke ; thirteen Epistles to Paul, including Philemon, but as- 
Chbing Hebrews to Barnabas: and quotes 1 Peter, 1 John, Jude, 
and Revelation, ascribing the last expressly lo the Apostle John. 
" Visit," says he to those who would exercise a commendable 
curiosity in matters of their salvation, — "visit the apostolical 
churches, in which the very chairs of the Apostles still preside; 
in which their very authentic letters* are recited, sounding forth 
the voice and representing the face of each one. Is Achaia near 
you? you have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, 
you have Philippi and Thessalonica. If you can go to Asia, 
you have Ephesus, &c." Putting together their statements, and 
the statements of others coeval with them, we learn that the 
books of the New Testament were at this period current in two 
volumes, called the Gospels and Apostles ; that there were four 
Gospels universally received, two of them from the Apostles 
Matthew and John, and two from Mark and Luke, who wrote 
respectively with the authority of Peter and Paul ; that the Acts 
were written by Luke, and fourteen Epistles by Paul, though 
Hebrews was doubted by some ; that of the seven Catholic Epis- 
tles all were known and quoted, excepting that we find no men- 
tion of James and 3 John ; and that Revelation was received as 
the work of the Apostle John. I wish you particularly to note, 
that amongst the books thus early received as genuine, are several 
of those which we shall presently see were afterwards doubted. 
Thus Justin Martyr quotes 2 Peter ; Ireneeus quotes and Clement 
received 2 John; Justin, Irenseus, Clement and Tertullian, all 
received Revelation as John's. There were other books now in 
circulation, some of them written by good men, others falsely 
ascribed to Apostles : but whilst these were read and sometimes 
quoted, it does not appear that they were ever received as genuine 
works of the Apostles or apostolical men, without which they 
could not have been deemed sacred and canonical. I wish you 
further to note, that as none of the writers of this period furnish 
catalogues of the Sacred Books, but only quote them or allude to 
them as they had occasion to do so, it is manifest, that the omis- 
sion to quote them or refer to them by no means proves that they 
did not know and receive them. The wonder rather is, that 
within one hundred years after the last of the Apostles, though 
no writer, as far as we know, saw fit to prepare a formal cata- 
logue of the Sacred Books, — a fact which argues a very general 
* Ipsse authenticse literse. 



154 



THE AUTHOKITY OF THE SACRED CANON 



consent in regard to them, — we yet have, in the remaining writ- 
ings of only a few authors, the most satisfactory proof of the 
reception of nearly every one of them as genuine and authorita- 
tive. " In the remaining works of Irenaeus, Clement of Alexan- 
dria, and Tertullian (though some works of each of them are 
lost), there are perhaps," says Dr. Lardner,* " more and larger 
quotations of the small volume of the New Testament, than of 
all the works of Cicero, though of so uncommon excellence for 
thought and style, in the writers of all characters for several 
ages." He elsewheref uses nearly the same language of the 
quotations in Tertullian alone. 

For reasons which I have already suggested, it was natural 
that by this time doubts should be felt and expressed in regard tc 
some of these books. The fact, too, that in some cases, books, 
which were admitted to be the works of uninspired men, were 
read in the churches as profitable books, while some, as Revela- 
tion, which were admitted to be the genuine works of inspired 
men, were not read on account of their obscurity or for other 
reasons, would help to induce doubts where before there had been 
none, and make it necessary for those who had the learning and 
the opportunity, to investigate the grounds on which the various 
books had been received into the churches, and the authority to 
which they were entitled. This was accordingly done: and 
there have descended to us some thirteen well-authenticated cata- 
logues of the genuine and canonical books, prepared by leading 
men in the two following centuries. 

3. To the substance of these ancient Cataloguesl I now invite 
your attention. 

The first- is that of an anonymous author, discovered by Mu- 
ratori, the famous Italian antiquarian, and by him referred to 
Caius, a Roman presbyter about a.d. 200. Of this we have only 
an obscure and barbarous Latin translation. It contains all 
the books except Hebrews, James, and probably 2d Peter and 3d 
John. 

The second is that of Origen, a presbyter of Alexandria, who 
flourished a.d. 230, little more than one hundred years after the 

* "Works, vol. iii. pp. 106, 7. London Edn. f lb. vol. i. p. 435, 

J For most of these Catalogues, besides the works of Lardner, see Kirchhofer's 
Quellensammlung z. Geschichte d. Neutest. Canons bis auf Hieronymus, where 
they, as well as the other testimony adduced in this Lecture, are given in the 
original. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 155 



Apostle John. He was, by general consent, the most lean ed man 
of his age; thoroughly studied in Pagan and Christian philoso- 
phy and literature ; a most voluminous writer, courted by the 
great, and honored and feared by his enemies. He devoted him- 
self especially to the study of the Sacred Scriptures ; and in two 
passages which Eusebius has preserved,* he has particularly enu- 
merated the books which had been handed down, and were then 
received, as genuine works of the Apostles and their attendants. 
He mentions that some doubted the genuineness of 2d Peter, and 
2d and 3d John ; thinks that Paul dictated Hebrews to some un- 
known amanuensis, who wrote down the Apostle's thoughts in his 
own words ; and omits James and Jude altogether. But he refers 
elsewhere in his works to these two Epistles as well known in 
the churches, though not universally received as genuine : and 
he would seem himself to have received them all, as he certainly 
did the remaining books of our Canon. 

The third catalogue is that of Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, 
early in the 4th century (a.d. 315). He was a diligent student 
and a voluminous writer, and is especially famous for a valuable 
Church History which has descended to us, and to which probably 
we are more indebted than to any other uninspired book of an- 
cient times. He made it a special subject of inquiry, what books 
had been received from the times of the Apostles as written by 
them or with their sanction, and frequently refers to it in his 
History. For greater distinctness he divides the books, which 
were in circulation, and more or less read by Christians and 
churches, into three classes : — 1. Those which were universally 
received as genuine (dftoXoyovfiiva). 2. Those of which some 
doubted, though the greater part admitted them (avjileyo^iva). 
3. Those which were spurious, i. e. certainly not from the Apostles 
(vodu). Of these last, some were good books, others absurd and 
impious. In the first class he enumerates all the books of our 
Canon, excepting James, 2d Peter, 2d and 3d John, Jude, and 
Revelation, — all which he puts in the second class, excepting Rev- 
elation, which he first places in the first class, and afterwards 
states that some rejected it.f 

The fourth catalogue is that of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexan- 
dria, who flourished about the same time with Eusebius. He is 
distinguished in ecclesiastical history for the part which he took 
in the great Arian controversy. In a fragment of what is called 
* Ecc. Hist. vi. 25 \ Ecc. Hist. iii. 25. comp. iii. 3. 



156 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



his Festal or Paschal Epistle, which the great majority cf the 
learned world admit to be genuine, he gives a catalogue of the 
books which had been handed down and believed to be inspired, 
for the especial and expressed purpose of guarding his readers 
from being imposed upon by spurious writings. His catalogue 
coincides, as to the books and authors, entirely with our own. 

The fifth catalogue is that of Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem about 
the middle of the 4th century (a.d. 340) ; and the sixth is that 
of the Council of Laodicea, where some thirty or forty bishops of 
Lydia assembled, likewise in the fourth century, though the exact 
year cannot be determined.* These catalogues agree with our 
owm, except that they omit Revelation. 

The seventh is that of Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus (a.d. 368), 
who, Jerome says, was a man of five languages. His catalogue 
is the same as ours. 

The eighth is that of Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantino- 
ple, in the latter half of the 4th century ; and the ninth that of 
Philastrius, Bishop of Brescia, in Italy, about the same time. 
Gregory mentions Revelation as doubted ; Philastrius omits it, and 
mentions only thirteen Epistles of Paul, omitting most probably 
that to the Hebrews, which had been questioned in the Western 
Church. 

The tenth catalogue is that of Jerome, who flourished in the 
latter part of the 4th century, and was the most learned of 
the Latin Fathers. His life was especially devoted to literary 
labors on the Sacred Scriptures. Many of his works have de- 
scended to us. Amongst these, the most noted is the Roman Vul- 
gate, or Latin translation of the Bible in common use in the 
Roman Catholic Church. No man in the ancient Church was 
better qualified to say what books had been received from the 
hands and times of the apostles. His catalogue agrees exactly 
with our present Canon. He mentions, indeed, that some disputed 
the authority of Hebrews, as others did that of Revelation ; but 
says that he himself, after the custom of the ancient writers, re- 
ceived both. He also composed a catalogue of illustrious ecclesi- 
astical writers who had preceded him, in which he gives short 
notices of the several writers of the New Testament, and ascribes 
to them the several books, as they are now ascribed in our 
Canon. 

The eleveiith catalogue is that of Ruffinus, a presbyter of 

* About a.d. 364. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACKED CANON. 



157 



Aquileia, in Italy, and contemporary with Jerome. Like most of 
the others, it professes to contain the hooks which had been hand- 
ed down as coming from the Apostles, and agrees exactly with our 
Canon. 

The twelfth catalogue is that of Augustine, the celebrated 
Bishop of Hippo, in Africa, and contemporary with Jerome and 
Ruffians. Inferior amongst the Latins only to Jerome in learn- 
ing, lie was. in the judgment of Lardner, not inferior to him in 
good sense. His catalogue agrees in all respects with our own. 

The thirteenth is that of the third (alias the sixth) Council of 
Carthage, which met about a.d. 397, and was composed of forty- 
four African bishops, amongst whom was Augustine. The 47th 
Canon contains a list of the books of the New Testament, which 
accords entirely with ours. 

To these I might add the catalogue of the unknown author of 
the works ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite ; as also that con- 
tained in the Synopsis, falsely ascribed to Athanasius ; and that 
in the so called, but misnamed. Apostolical Constitutions. These 
all, while their real authors and dates are uncertain, are ancient 
catalogues, though most probabty subsequent to those that have 
been mentioned: — they all agree exactly with our Canon. 

Such are the Catalogues which were prepared by learned and 
distinguished men, .who flourished from one hundred to three hun- 
dred years after the last of the Apostles. They lived in different 
countries, at different times, and occupied high places in the 
Church. They were, therefore, fully competent to declare what 
books had been received before them, and were received in their 
own times, as genuine works of the Apostles. Most of them, let 
it be observed, profess to give the books which had been received 
from the beginning: and thus we have the testimony of the most 
distinguished writers of old, who were deeply interested and in- 
dustriously careful to separate the genuine books from the spu- 
rious, and who withal had the best means of doing so — conclusively 
showing that the books which were received in the ages nearest to 
the Apostles as genuine, were the very same which we now receive 
into our Canon. They tell us, indeed, that a few of the books were 
doubted by some: — that James, 2d Peter, 2d and 3d John, Jude, 
and Revelation were not admitted by all; and that some doubted 
whether Paul was the author of Hebrews: — but let it be noted, 
that the leading of these witnesses carefully state that the great 
majority received them 3 as they themselves did after those who 



158 THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



had precsded them ; — and as, I will add, the great majority of the 
learned have done down to the present day. The doubts which 
some entertained in relation to some of the books, show conclusive- 
ly, that they were not received without examination. The great 
question, as appears from the statements of many of the writers, 
as well as from the actual results, was, what books were written 
by the Apostles, and with their sanction, for the guidance of the 
Church ? And though some doubted in regard to some of the 
books, the great majority were agreed on the whole Canon as we 
now have it ; and in this judgment the most learned and leading 
men of the times who investigated the subject and have given us 
the results of their inquiries, themselves concurred. Of the thir- 
teen well-authenticated catalogues which they have furnished us, 
— to say nothing of the others, — seven agree exactly with our 
Canon ; three omit only Revelation ;* whilst of the remaining 
three, the authors of two are known to have received the books 
which they omit or note as doubted. Nor do these catalogues, 
let it be further noticed, contain any books that are not in our 
present Canon. We have, as far as their evidence goes, all the 
books that were ever received as genuine by those who lived 
nearest to the times of the Apostles. If, in any case, a writer of 
any note quotes other books as sacred or divine, — Origen says, in 
one place, of the Shepherd of Hennas, "I think it is divinely in- 
spired,"t — it is generally sufficiently manifest from other passages 
of the same author, that he did not regard them as on an equality 
with the books of the Sacred Canon, and abundantly so from other 
writers, if not himself, that the general voice was against them. 
They were good to be read as the products of minds enlightened 
and sanctified by the Spirit of God, but not binding, like the books 
of the Sacred Canon, in matters of faith and practice. 

4. In further proof of the genuineness of our New Testament 
Canon, I appeal to the testimony of several ancient versions. 

Among these I notice, first, the Old Syrian, commonly called 
the Peshito Version. This translation of the books of both the 
Old and New Testaments, was made for the Syrian churches, 
according to some in the third century, but according to the great 
majority of critics early in the second, and some distinguished 

* Which, however, besides the authors of the Seven, Justin Martyr, Irenjeus, 
Clemens Alexandrinus, and Tertullian, all received, as did the majority then and 
before them. 

•j- Divinitus inspirata. 



- 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 159 

authors have es en regarded it as a product of the first. It is gen- 
erally admitted to be a remarkably accurate version. It contains 
all the books of our present Canon, excepting 2d Peter, 2d and 
3d John, Jude, and Revelation. A distinguished critic* contends, 
with some plausibility, that originally it may have contained all 
these, especially the last. However this may be, we are struck 
with the fact, that thus early after the age of the Apostles, — pos- 
sibly within half a century, — notwithstanding the slow process 
of transcription, we have in circulation in the churches of Syria, 
a translation of so complete a collection of the sacred writings. 
Composed, as the books originally were, in different countries, by 
different persons, at different times, and addressed for the most 
part to different churches, and even private individuals, the won- 
der is, that so complete a collection w r as so soon made by the trans- 
lator or translators of this version, and not that a few of the books 
should be wanting in it. We see proof here, as elsewhere in the 
early writers, and as we should have expected from the nature of 
the writings and from the claims of their authors, that the ascer- 
taining of the genuine works of the Apostles and the obtaining 
of correct copies of them, was a matter of earnest and diligent 
solicitude with the early Christians and churches. And we ob- 
serve here, as in the later writers and catalogues which I have 
adduced, that the books of which we might have expected that 
there would be less demand, or some delay in the circulation, and 
finally some hesitancy in the reception, are the very books which 
appear to have failed, when this early and excellent translation 
was made, to obtain general circulation and reception in Syria. 

The second version which I mention is an old Latin version, 
commonly called the Itala. De Wettej a skeptical German 
critic, says, its origin belongs to the ealiest times of Christianity. 
Eichhom* thinks that it was made before the middle of the sec- 
ond century. Augustine refers to it as the best of many Latin 
translations, of which both he and Jerome speak as circulating 
in the African and Western churches, at a very early period. Its 
text became much corrupted by transcription, and Jerome under- 
took to revise and correct it. Augustine complains equally with 
him of the corrupt state of its text, and urged upon him to make 
the revision : but we nowhere find in Jerome or Augustine, both 
of whom we have seen held to the Canon just as we have it, the 

* Hug Introd. N. T. § 65. f De Wette on the O. T. (Parker) § 48. 

X Einleitung in d. A. T. ii. § 322. 



160 THE AUTHOKITY OF THE SACKED CANCX 

slightest intimation that this ancient version was deficient in any 
of the books. Jerome himself subsequently, at the urgency of 
his friends, prepared a Latin translation of the entire Scriptures. 
The circulation of this was much opposed by Ruffinus and others, 
and even feared by Augustine : so that Jerome had to defend both 
himself and his version from the charges of his opponents. Yet 
we find no allusion to any such objection to the old Latin versions 
as being defective in the Canon, and to the completeness of his 
own as enhancing its relative value. We conclude, therefore, 
that the old Latin versions which were in circulation in the very 
first ages of Christianity, embraced all the books which were in 
the Canon of Jerome and Augustine, which we have seen was 
the same as ours. 

To say nothing of other versions, — as the Coptic, the Sahidic, 
the Etbiopic, the Gothic, and the Armenian, I mention lastly the 
Latin version of Jerome himself, which soon obtained general 
circulation in the West, and, under the name of the Vulgate, 
which he had applied to the Itala, received finally the authorita- 
tive sanction of the Romish Church. Of this it must suffice to 
say, that it contains all the books of our New Testament Canon, 
and none others. And in dismissing thus briefly the testimony 
of the versions, I remark that the extent of their circulation shows 
how general was the admission, in the ages nearest to the times 
of the Apostles, that the books which they contained were the 
genuine works of the Apostles and their attendants. 

5. But I have not yet done with the evidence for the genuine- 
ness of our New Testament Canon. Yfe derive an important 
argument in its favor from the early heretics and the very ene- 
mies of Christianity. The Gnostic heretics, who troubled the 
Church in the very first periods, never questioned the genuine- 
ness of the books. They even admitted some to be genuine, the 
inspiration of which on account of their philosophical views they 
denied. The early infidels too, — Lucian (a.d. 170), Celsus (a.d. 
176), Porphyry (a.d. 270), and Julian (a.d. 361),— all of them 
acute and educated men, never called in question the genuineness 
of the sacred books of the Christians. The charges which they 
bring against the Christians are derived from those books only : 
the facts and doctrines which they allege to be received by them 
are contained in the books of our present Canon : — thus clearly 
proving the identity of the ancient Canon and our own. We 
might indeed make out from their writings the great leading 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



161 



facts, and not a few of the doctrines of the New Testament: but 
whilst they endeavor to explain or to confute them, they never 
question the genuineness of the books in which they are related. 
Had the early Christians received other books, such as have come 
down to us, these had furnished far better grounds of attack, and 
had certainly not been overlooked by such acute and vigilant adver- 
saries. The fact that they did not thus make them the source of 
charges against the Christians, proves that they were never 
received by them as authoritatively expounding their religion. 

Thus, my hearers, I think I have established my first proposi- 
tion, that the books of the New Testament are genuine. For 
the great majority of them, the testimony, as we have seen, for 
the first four centuries after the age in which their authors lived, is 
uniform, and clear, and unquestionable. Amongst these, let it be 
remembered, that the four Gospels stand pre-eminent : the best 
and most learned of the early Fathers testify again and again 
that these four, and only these, were to be received as genuine. 
Respecting a few of the books some doubted : but the great ma- 
jority, and amongst them those who examined most carefully and 
were best qualified to judge, received them as genuine. Other 
books indeed were sometimes read, and quoted, and highly valued 
by the early Christians : — in what period of the Church has this 
not been the case? — But they were never referred to by the con- 
temporaries and immediate successors of the Apostles ; they were 
not read in the churches ; they were not admitted into the sacred 
volume; they do not appear in the catalogues; they were not 
noticed by the enemies of Christianity : they were not alleged by 
different parties as of authority in their controversies ; they were 
not the subjects of comments, versions, harmonies, and homilies :* 
all which we have seen was more or less the case with the books 
of our Canon, — from which, therefore, these are and were properly 
excluded as of later origin. 

These facts conclusively show that the books of our Canon were 
not received without investigation, and were only received upon 
satisfactory evidence of their genuineness. The disputed books 
were those of which, for the most part, we might have anticipated 
that doubts would arise, — upon grounds, however, of which we 
ourselves can judge, and which the great body of Christian writers 
in every age have deemed insufficient. After the middle of the 
4th century the genuineness of the books, which some had previ- 

* Paley's Evidences, c. ix. § xi. 
11 



162 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



ously questioned, was universally conceded ; and succeeding ages 
down to the present day have, with very partial exceptions, ac- 
knowledged them all, — and none others. A spirit of skepticism 
has, indeed, for more than half a century past, pervaded some of 
the churches on the Continent of Europe, and especially of Ger- 
many. The evidences of the genuineness of the Sacred Canon 
have been sifted anew. But whatever may be the conclusions of 
some minds more skeptical than conservative or sound, the only 
and certain result of this ordeal will, we believe, on most minds 
be to confirm the conclusions of the pious and learned in the 4th 
century, that whilst the evidence for the genuineness of the books 
is not in all cases equally strong, yet in no case is that evidence 
against, but decidedly in favor of each particular book, and there- 
fore that all ought to be received. 

I have said that the evidence of the genuineness of these books, 
is of the same kind as that on which we rely to prove the genu- 
ineness of all ancient books. In degree this evidence far exceeds 
that for the works of any classic author of antiquity. Even the 
Orations of Cicero or Demosthenes, the histories of Caesar or Thu- 
cydides, the Satires of Horace or the Tragedies of Sophocles, are 
not sustained by equal testimony, external and internal. The 
truth is, that the spread of Christianity was unparalleled for 
rapidity: the demand for the books, which were regarded as 
expounding the will of its great Founder, was immediate aud ur- 
gent: they were copied, studied, quoted, translated, commented on, 
and harmonies and homilies composed on them, in an unprece- 
dented manner: and the consequence is an accumulation of 
evidence for their genuineness, equalled by that of no other an- 
cient books whatever. We must, therefore, admit the genuine- 
ness of these, or assume the impossibility of proving the genuine- 
ness of any. 

II. My second proposition is, that the history contained in the 
New Testament is true history. 

Here again I rely upon the ordinary proofs of the truth of any 
history whatsoever. My assertion is that, tried by every proper 
test, the history contained in the New Testament is true history, 
or there is none true. 

1. In the first place, the matters related were public. 

They took place on the highways and in the cities and vil- 
lages ; on the thronged mountain-side, and the crowded plain, 
and the frequented sea-shore ; in the synagogues and on the 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACKED CANON. 



163 



streets ; in private houses, and public halls, and temple courts ; 
and in the presence of enemies, as well as of friends. Names, 
dates, places, and attendant circumstances are freely given. 
Almost everything-, related as said and done, occurred in the pres- 
ence of several, generally of many witnesses. 

2. In the second place, the ivitnesses were competent. 

They were eye-witnesses of what they relate, or they got their 
knowledge from those who were. Two of the Gospels, as we 
have seen, were written by Apostles who were personal attend- 
ants on our Saviour's ministry of which they give an account ; 
the other two and the Acts, by attendants on the ministry of the 
Apostles, from whom they could learn accurately all the facts, 
and under whose direction ancient writers constantly affirm that 
they wrote. Mark was most probably a native of Jerusalem, 
himself possibly personally conversant, or at least acquainted 
with those who were personally conversant with much of our 
Saviour's history, and certainly an attendant on the Apostles 
Paul and Peter. Luke was, according to the ancient testimony, 
a native of Antioch and a physician, and a companion of the 
Apostle Paul. They were all men of sound understanding. 
Their narratives alone prove this. They do not appear credu- 
lous, but slow to believe. We discover no heated enthusiasm or 
raving fanaticism, but the plain and sober narrative of what the 
witnesses saw and heard for themselves, or learned from those 
who did see and hear, and were qualified to tell. Men, who could 
write such narratives, would be admitted as competent witnesses 
of such facts before any unprejudiced tribunal in the country. 
They were incompetent indeed to forge such narratives, had 
Jesus Christ never actually lived, and taught, and acted, and 
died, and rose again : but knowing these matters as facts, they 
were abundantly competent to testify to them. 

3. In the next place, they were men of integrity. 

This appears, first, from their sacrifices and sufferings in the 
cause to which they bear testimony. They all gave up their 
secular callings, and followed Christ, who was hated by the Jews 
and despised by the Greeks, and whose service promised little 
worldly emolument, but much tribulation and persecution. They 
devoted their lives, with much hazard and toil, to publishing this 
testimony ; and some of them probably died on account of it. 

Their integrity further appears from the minute details and 
manifold circumstantial allusions, with which their histories 



164 THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



abound. It is unnecessary for me. even if I had the time, to ex 
hibit a view of these details and allusions. You know that they 
mention dates, places, persons, and attendant circumstances, with 
the utmost freedom, and that they make innumerable allusions: 
and statements respecting the existing relations of every kind of 
the age in which they lived. Such is not the manner of de- 
ceivers generally. They carefully avoid such minute details, and 
such manifold allusions and statements respecting the times of 
which they write, because they know that these furnish the readiest 
means of detecting and exposing them. The writers before us 
show manifestly that they meant no deception, and felt no fear 
of exposure. The attempt has often been made to find them in 
contradiction with the times, but never successfully. On the 
contrary, the more accurate and minute our knowledge of those 
times, the more have all seeming difficulties of this character 
vanished. 

Their integrity further appears from the remarkable agreement 
in their testimony, whilst }^et there is abundant evidence of no 
collusion amongst them. The first three of the witnesses, who 
wrote earliest, are remarkably parallel in the accounts which 
they give of the life of Christ. The fourth, who wrote later, re- 
lates many things not contained in the others, as he also omits 
much which they related. The agreement is the more striking 
when we consider, how much Christ did in his brief but active 
life,* and how nearly the writers relate the same things in the 
same words. Some have hence supposed that there was mani- 
fest collusion amongst them to impose upon the world. But it is 
enough to answer, without referring to the different countries in 
which the ancients tell us that they wrote, that the variations 
are so numerous and the apparent discrepancies so great, that 
quite as many have been led to reject their testimony as palpably 
contradictory. The variations, however they may be harmon- 
ized, certainly do show that there was no collusion amongst 
the writers : the agreement, however it may be explained, proves 
the integrity of the testimony. The authors clearly wrote re- 
gardless of conformity or nonconformity to the statements of 
others. Any three intelligent witnesses, thus concurring in their 
testimony, and yet so varying as to preclude just suspicion of 
collusion, would be admitted before any fair tribunal in the 
country. Any three historians, thus differing, would never be 

Comp. John xx. 30, 31 and xxi. 25. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 



165 



suspected of collusion ; thus agreeing, would never be rejected as 
false. Their agreement must be accounted for on other grounds 
than the supposition of collusion : their differences must be solved 
by other assumptions than the falsity of the witnesses. Were I 
to give my own opinion in a case where many have theorized 
without facts to sustain them, I should say, that the variations 
occur precisely because the witnesses were independent, and it 
was so ordered in the providence of God that they might appear 
to be so ; and that the remarkable agreement in the selection of 
facts and discourses to be related, and often in the very words, is 
to be fully and satisfactorily accounted for only by ascribing it to 
that one and the same Spirit of God, which (as I shall presently 
endeavor briefly to prove) dwelt in and directed each one, so that 
at the mouth of two or three duly concurring witnesses, every 
word might be established. 

4. Lastly, the accounts were published in the same age in 
which the facts occurred . 

We have already seen that the writers were contemporaneous 
with the facts which they relate. Their narratives, therefore, 
must have been published by them while many of their own gen- 
eration, and many who were cognizant of, if not actors in, the 
scenes mentioned, were yet alive. According to the ancient tra- 
dition these narratives were published, one in Palestine, another 
in Rome, another in Greece, another in Ephesus, and the fifth 
possibly at Rome also. From these places, — or wherever else they 
were published, — it is certain that they rapidly and early spread 
over the whole Roman empire. And yet we hear not one word 
of contradiction of their truth from any quarter whatever. 

The remarks which I have made apply, in the main, not only 
to the histories contained in the Gospels and Acts, but also to the 
historical notices and statements which are contained in most of 
the other books of the New Testament. I repeat, therefore, that 
the history in the New Testament is true history, or there is none 
true. The facts related were public; the narrators were compe- 
tent, and men of integrity ; and the accounts were published soon 
after the matters related took place : they are contradicted by no 
contemporaneous testimony, but rather confirmed ; and furnish 
the only solution to the great fact of Christianity, which, all his- 
tory shows, originated in that age, and has continued ever since. 
No history can afford better proofs of its truth. By whatever 
process we set aside this as untrue history, we may set aside all 



166 THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 



history as untrue ; and give to skepticism universal sway. We 
shall be allowed to believe that only which we have seen with our 
own eyes ; and we can scarcely credit them, because by this skep- 
tical criticism all others become unworthy of credit, and our own 
can scarcely be exceptions to so general a law. 

Thus, my hearers, have I endeavored to maintain the genuine- 
ness of our New Testament Canon, and the credibility of the 
New Testament history. I have about as much to say on the 
propositions which yet remain. But I fear that I have already 
trespassed on your patience, and respectfully request of you an- 
other hearing. 



n. 

Respected Auditors— 

I think I have shown that the New Testament Canon is gen 
uine, and that the New Testament history is true. 

III. My third proposition is, that Christ was divine, and his 
Apostles inspired, and consequently our New Testament was 
from God. 

The proof of this proposition, like that of the preceding, in- 
volves much that must enter largely into other lectures of this 
course : and as I introduce it only to give completeness to my own 
argument, I shall despatch it, as I have done the other, with little 
more than a brief outline. 

Christ claimed to be sent from God, and to be the Son of God : 
to do the works of God, and to have all power committed into his 
hands: to be one with the Father; to be entitled to the same 
honor as the Father ; to so represent Him before men, that they 
who saw him saw the Father ; and that as he came from the 
Father, so he would return to the Father, to enjoy with Him the 
glory which he had before the world began, and come again to 
judge the world at the last day. When he was about to leave 
the world, he still promised to be with his Apostles an all-sufficient 
help : to give them his Spirit which should guide them into all 
truth ; should receive of the things of Christ and show them to 
them ; and should teach them all things, and bring all things to 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



167 



their remembrance, whatsoever he had commanded them: and 
finally, to enable them to do mighty works. Thus qualified, he 
commissioned them to go forth and proclaim him as the Saviour 
to the ends of the earth, beginning at Jerusalem. 

The Apostles accordingly went forth, and boldly and clearly 
taught that Christ was indeed the Son of God, God manifest in. 
the flesh, the Redeemer of the world : that though he had been 
crucified, he was now exalted to be Head over all things to 
the Church : that he was the Creator, the Upholder, the Lord of 
all : and that he would come again to judge the world. They 
claimed for themselves to be commissioned by him to teach in 
his name and to order his kingdom ; and accordingly constantly 
spoke and wrote and acted as by authority from God. 

So much appears plainly from the history contained in the New 
Testament. Christ claimed to be divine, and promised to inspire 
his Apostles : the Apostles taught that Christ was divine, and 
claimed themselves to be inspired. And how were these claims 
supported ? — According to these histories, 

First, by miracles, such as no man ever performed without the 
help and power of God. The blind were made to see, the deaf to 
hear, the dumb to speak, the lame to walk ; the insane were re- 
stored, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, the sea was 
calmed, — all promptly and by a word. About such miracles there 
could be no deception. Most of them were frequently performed, 
and just as occasion called for them. The blind, the deaf, the 
dumb, the lame, the insane, the sick, the dead, were all known 
before and after the healing and restoring power was applied ; 
and deception was impossible. Now these miracles were wrought 
by Christ and his Apostles in proof of their respective claims. 
Christ expressly challenged belief on account of his works, and 
miraculous powers were the proper signs of an Apostle. Would 
God thus support impostors in such arrogant pretensions ? They 
supported their claims, 

Secondly, by their prophecies, some of which were speedily ful- 
filled, others are in process of fulfilment to this day. Thus Christ 
foretold that he should be put to death in Jerusalem ; that he 
must there first sutler many things of the elders, and chief priests, 
and scribes ; that they would condemn him to death, and deliver 
him to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify him ; that 
the man who dipped his hands with him in the same dish, should 
betray him into their power ; that the rest of his disciples would 



168 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



forsake him that night, and one of them deny him thrice; that 
h£ should be crucified ; that he would rise again the third day ; 
that he would meet his disciples in Galilee ; that after his as- 
cension, the Holy Spirit should descend on them at Jerusalem ; 
that miraculous powers should thenceforth be possessed and exer- 
cised by them ; that Jerusalem should be besieged and taken, and 
the Temple utterly destroyed before all then living were dead ; 
that the city should be trodden under foot of the Gentiles, until 
the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled; and that his gospel should 
universally spread, and his kingdom triumph over all opposition. 
Most of these were strikingly fulfilled before that generation 
passed away ; others are in process of glorious accomplishment at 
the present day. — Of the Apostles few prophecies are recorded : 
but the Saviour promised that the Spirit, when He came, should 
show them things to come ; and everywhere in the subsequent 
Scriptures, Acts as well as the Epistles, we find frequent reference 
to the gift of prophecy as one enjoyed even by some in the Church 
who were inferior to Apostles. Cases, however, are recorded in 
which the Apostles did foretell near events which came duly to 
pass, as well as remote ones, the full accomplishment of which 
remains to be seen.* The certain knowledge of future things is 
as much a direct gift of God as the power of miracles, and like it 
would not be bestowed on impostors of such daring pretensions. — 
In further proof of their claims I plead, 

Thirdly, their doctrines, so unlike and superior to all the 
philosophy of the ancients, so becoming the character and pro- 
motive of the glory of God, so suited to the spiritual necessities 
of man. The doctrines of a Triune God, infinitely holy and 
infinitely perfect ; of the creation of ail things out of nothing ; 
of the original perfection and subsequent fall of man ; of his re- 
demption by the obedience and death of Him who was at once 
the Son of God and the Son of Man ; of the gracious operations 
of the Holy Spirit, by which alone man can attain again to the 
lost image of his Maker ; of a providence that extends alike to 
the whole and every, even the minutest part of creation; of a 
future resurrection, and a universal judgment, and everlasting 
rewards of blessedness and woe : — these, and others connected 
with them, constitute a scheme of doctrires far above all the 
light of nature and all the philosophy of men, suited to all the 

* See 2 Thess, il 1-12. 1 Tim. iv. 1-E 2 Peter ii. throughout, and Revelation 
passim. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



169 



solemn exigencies of man's moral character and condition, and 
glorious to all the perfections of God ; — from whom alone, there- 
fore, they could have originated. In further proof of the justice 
of their claims I argue, 

Fourthly, their moral code, which commends itself to the reason 
and conscience of every sound-minded man. Its essence is su- 
preme love to God, and universal love towards our fellow-men ; 
self-abasement of the sinner, and glory in the highest to the Crea- 
tor and Redeemer, and Judge. Virtues are inculcated which the 
ancients never knew, or even regarded as vices ; vices are con- 
demned which they esteemed to be virtues. The great rule of 
life is the will of God ; his giory and the creature's good, man's 
chief end. Such a code, bad men could not have originated, and 
would not have propagated at such sacrifices and hazard, if at 
all ; good men would not have falsely ascribed them to God. 

I say, therefore, that our Saviour was divine and his Apostles 
inspired, and consequently our New Testament was from God. 
It was written by men, or at the dictation and with the approval 
of men, who gave abundant proof that they spoke and wrote as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost : by men who had commis- 
sion from Christ to establish and order his Church upon the 
foundation which he had laid, with the broad promise that he 
was with them to the end of the world, and that what they 
bound on earth should be bound in heaven, and what they loosed 
on earth should be loosed in heaven. The New Testament, 
therefore, comes from them to us with the solemn imprimatur 
of God. 

IV. My fourth proposition is, that Christ and his Apostles en- 
dorsed the Jewish Canon, as it then existed, as Divine Scrip- 
tures : that this Canon was the same as our Old Testament : and 
consequently, that this also is complete and from God. 

The first part of this proposition, that the Saviour and his 
Apostles endorsed the Jewish Canon as it then existed, as Divine 
Scriptures, scarcely needs demonstration before this audience. 
Every reader of the New Testament knows how constantly they 
make their appeal to the Jewish Scriptures as authoritative and 
Divine. " I was daily with you," says Christ to those who came 
to apprehend him, in the temple teaching, and ye took me not : 
but the Scriptures must be fulfilled."* "Think not that I am 
come to destroy the Law or the Prophets : I am not come to de- 

* Mark xiv. 49. 



170 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



stroy but to fulfil." * — " These are the words which I spake unto 
you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled 
which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, 
and in the Psalms concerning me."t In these and many like pas- 
sages, the authority of the Scriptures received by the Jews is 
acknowledged and confirmed : and they are referred to, not only in 
a general way, par excellence, as Divine, but the several divisions 
of the books, according to the classification prevalent at the 
time, as we shall presently see, are distinctly mentioned. "All 
Scripture," says Paul, — naaa yga(p^ all the parts or books which 
compose the whole, — "is given by inspiration of God ; and is pro- 
fitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness. n t "Prophecy," says Peter, " came not in old time 
by the will of man ; but holy men of God spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost."§ Here, in like manner, the Apostles 
endorse all the Scriptures, in current use among the Jews, as 
inspired of God, and consequently possessing Divine authority. 
So throughout the New Testament : the writers themselves con- 
stantly appeal, and they represent Christ as thus appealing to the 
current Jewish Scriptures as the Word of God. The common 
forms of quotation show the esteem in which they held them : 
"As it is written ;" "Thus saii.h the Scriptures;" "Thus saith 
the Lord f " As the Holy Ghost saith f " He saith," &c. While 
they thus freely appeal to the Jewish Scriptures, they never intima- 
ted that these Scriptures contained any which ought not to have 
been in them, nor that any which should have been in them had 
been taken away. They charge the Jewish teachers with per- 
verting and setting them aside by their traditions, but never with 
adding to or taking from the Scriptures themselves. They, there- 
fore, plainly endorse the Jewish Canon as authoritative and com- 
plete. 

It only remains that I show the truth of the second part of my 
proposition, that the Jewish Canon ivas the same as our Old 
Testament, and we are ready for the conclusion, that this also is 
complete and, from God. 

We have then before us another plain historical inquiry, — What 
books composed the Jewish Canon at the time of our Saviour and 
his Apostles? And it devolves on me to prove that they were the 
very same which compose our present Old Testament Canon, 
That this was the fact, I argue 

* Malt. v. 17. f Luke xxiv. 44. % 2 Tim. iii. 16. § 2 Peter i. 21. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



171 



I. First, from the testimony of the New Testament itself. 
Here we find nearly all the books of our Old Testament quoted, 
or clearly alluded to ;* and nothing quoted or alluded to as divine 
Scripture, which is not contained in it. The only plausible ex 
ceptions to this last statement are the mention of the names, 
Jannes and Jambres, in Paul's 2d Epistle to Timothy, as the 
names of those who withstood Moses ; and of the prophecy of 
Enoch, and Michael's contest with Satan for the body of Moses, 
in the Epistle of Jude: — of all which it is enough to say, that it 
has never been proved that they were cited from any book at all, 
and that, if they were, it does not follow that the books were 
cited as divine and canonical. It is sufficient that the matters 
referred to were facts : and the citation from the books in which 
they were found, no more proves the canonical authority of these 
books, unless it can be shown that they belonged to the Jewish 
Canon at the time, — which no one will affirm, — than Paul's cita- 
tions from certain writings of Aratus or Cleanthes, Menander, 
and Epimenides proves them to be of divine authority. An in- 
spired writer may cite or refer to uninspired writings ; the writers 
and compilers of the Old Testament not unfrequently did so : — ■ 
but such bare citations or references, even when admitted to be 
such, can only prove the existence of the writings and their truth- 
fulness in the particulars cited or referred to as true. They be- 
come proofs of the canonical authority of the writings only when 
they are cited or referred to as divine Scriptures ; or when there is 
other sufficient proof, that they belonged to the Canon of Scrip- 
tures which the inspired writers endorsed as of divine authority. 
Such is not the character of the alleged citations or references. 
Even admitting that books were cited or referred to, there is noth- 
ing to indicate that they were regarded by the inspired writers as 
having divine authority ; and there is abundant other proof that 
the Jewish Canon, which they endorsed, contained no such wri- 
tings. On the other hand, the books of our Old Testament, 
which are quoted or referred to, are quoted or referred to as divine, 
in the way that I have already mentioned ; or there is abundant 
other proof that they, as well as the books which are not quoted 
or referred to, were all contained in the Jewish Canon as endorsed 
by Christ and his Apostles. — I proceed with this testimony, and 
adduce, 

* The books not cited, according to Eichhorn (Einleitung in d. A. T. § Si), are 
Judges, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. 



172 



THE AUTHOKITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



2. Next, the testimony of ancient Jewish rcriters. 

Amongst these Joseplms stands pre-eminent. He was born soon 
after our Saviour's death, — about a.d. 37, — and flourished partly 
in the age of the Apostles. He was of priestly extraction, care- 
fully educated in the religion and literature of his country; and, 
at a later period, devoted himself with great assiduity and success 
to the language and literature of the Greeks. He espoused the 
cause of his country when invaded by the Romans ; but was 
early taken prisoner, and acted as interpreter for Vespasian and 
Titus until the conquest of Jerusalem, when he was carried to 
Rome, and permitted to dwell in the imperial palace. Here he 
wrote his History of the Jewish War, and his account of the 
Jewish Antiquities. No man of his age and country was better 
able to relate the customs and opinions and history of his own 
people. In his maturer life he wrote a treatise against Apion, an 
Alexandrian grammarian, who had violently assailed the Jewish 
nation. In this treatise,* defending the authenticity and credi- 
bility of the Jewish Scriptures, he writes as follows : — 

" For we have not amongst us myriads of books, discordant 
and conflicting, but only twenty-two books, containing the history 
of all (past) time and justly believed to be divine. Of these five 
belong to Moses, which contain the laws and the tradition of the 
origin of mankind until his death: this period is little less than 
three thousand years. From the death of Moses to the reign of 
Artaxerxes, king of the Persians after Xerxes, the Prophets who 
were after Moses recorded the events of their times in thirteen 
books. The four remaining books contain hymns to God, and 
rules of life for men. From Artaxerxes to our own time every- 
thing has been written ; but it is not esteemed of equal credit 
with what preceded, because there has not been an exact succes- 
sion of Piophets. And it is evident from fact, how we believe in 
our Scriptures: for through so long a period already elapsed, no 
one has dared to add anything, or to take from them, or to make 
alterations ; but it is implanted in all Jews, from their very birth, 
to consider them oracles of God (deov doy^axa), and to abide by 
them, and for them, if need be, cheerfully to die." 

In this important passage of Josephus, we notice, first, a divi- 
sion of the books which composed the Jewish Scriptures into three 
classes. We have already met with the same division in the New 
Testament :t " All things must be fulfilled which were written in 
* B. i. § 8. f Luke xxiv. 44. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



173 



the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concern- 
ing me." We find it about the same time in Philo, a learned Jew 
of Alexandria (a.d. 41), who, speaking of the Essenes, a Jewish 
sect, says that there was in every house a sanctuary into which 
they introduced nothing but "the Laws, and the Oracles which were 
uttered by the prophets, and the Hymns and other writings by 
which knowledge and piety increase together and are perfected."* 
We find it still earlier (b.c. 130-2301") in the preface to the transla- 
tion of the work entitled The Wisdom of Sirach, by his grand- 
son. He several times distinctly mentions the Law, the Proph- 
ets, and the other books, which had been diligently studied by his 
grandfather before he undertook his own work. From all these it 
is evident, that long before the time of Christ, the Old Testament 
books constituted a well-known and received Canon amongst the 
Jews : — in other words, that the Canon of the Old Testament had 
long been closed, and the books arranged under three definite 
divisions. Tjie third class would seem at first to have had no dis- 
tinctive name : but as the other two were specifically and appropri- 
ately designated, this class, for the want of an appropriate name, 
was simply called for distinction's sake, 'the other Scriptures 
— in the time of Christ, 'Psalms,' or, 'Hymns and Practical 
Books, 5 from the place which the Psalms held in the division, or 
from the prevailing character of the books; and afterwards again, 
as we shall see, simply ' Scriptures,' or ' Holy Scriptures '+ 

We notice, secondly, that Josephus mentions the number, 
though not the names, of the books belonging to each class. Of 
the Law there were jive, of the Prophets thirteen, and of the 
Hymns and Practical Books four : in all twenty-two. Had he 
given us a list of the books in each class, his testimony would 
have been complete in itself. But there is little difficulty in show- 
ing the identity of the Jewish Canon as thus described with our 
present Old Testament. The five books of the Law were cer- 
tainly, according to universal consent ancient and modern, the 
five books of Moses, — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and 
Deuteronony. By Prophets the Jews designated those who were 
inspired to declare the will of God; and holding firmly that such 
men wrote all the books of their Canon, the thirteen books of the 

* De Vit. Con tempi. § 3, where it seems plain from the following context that h<5 
refers to the received Sacred Scriptures. 

f Havernick places the grandfather b.c. 200-300. Einleitung in d. A. T. § 8. 

% D'OlfO ayi6ypa<}>a. 



174 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACKED CANON. 



Prophets, combining them as we shall see was common in order 
to reduce the whole number to that of the letters of their alpha- 
bet, must in distinction from the others have been, 1. Joshua, 
2. Judges with Ruth, 3. 1st and 2d Samuel 4. 1st and 2d Kings, 
5. 1st and 2d Chronicles, 6. Ezra and Nehemiah, 7. Esther, 8. Job, 
9. Isaiah, 10. Jeremiah and Lamentations, 11. Ezekiel, 12. Daniel, 
and 13. the twelve minor Prophets reckoned as one. The four 
books of Hymns and Rules of Life would be Psalms, Proverbs, 
Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. The coincidence is so 
complete, that few have ever doubted that Josephus refers to the 
very books that compose our Old Testament Canon. 

We notice, thirdly, that Josephus distinctly states that after the 
time of Artaxerxes. before which all these books had been written, 
Jewish affairs had been recorded in other books, which, he implies, 
were duly respected, but says expressly that they were not re- 
ceived on a par with the others, because there was no regular 
succession of Prophets or inspired men. These books can only 
be the Apocryphal books, of whose early existence and use, as 
books of more or less value, we have abundant proof, but whose 
want of inspired authority is here explicitly affirmed as the belief 
of the nation. For the remainder of this testimony I shall have 
use presently. 

The conclusion to which we have come of the identity of the Jew- 
ish Canon, as described by Josephus, with our own Old Testament, 
is strongly confirmed by the fact that Philo, to whom I have al- 
ready referred as a learned Alexandrian Jew, nearly contemporary 
with Christ, quotes or alludes to nearly all the books now in our 
Old Testament Canon as Divine Scriptures, while he never makes 
use of the Apocryphal books, certainly never quotes them as au- 
thority.* 

3. My next proof of the identity of our Old Testament and the 
Jewish Canon endorsed by our Saviour and his Apostles, is de- 
rived from the early Christian writers. 

The first whom I adduce is Melito, Bishop of Sardis about a.d. 
170, and renowned alike for his piety and his learning. In an 
Epistlet to Onesimus, his brother, after mentioning his brother's 
earnest desire and request to have an accurate statement of the 
ancient books, he says, that he (Melito) had journeyed to the 
East and to the region where the things were preached and done 

* Eichhorn Einleitung in d. A. T. § 26. De Wette on the 0. T. (Parker) § 176. 
f Preserved by Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. b. i v. c, 2<6. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON ; 



175 



(i. e. Palestine), and having accurately ascertained the oooks of 
the Old Testament, he subjoined a list and sent it to him. This 
List is exactly the same as ours, only differing in the order and 
omitting the book of Esther. A distinguished critic* supposes 
that this, as well as the book of Nehemiah, was included under 
the name of Ezra: but inasmuch as the books, when summed up 
according to Melito's mode of counting them, amount on his list 
only to twenty-one, and the usual reckoning made twenty-two, it 
is more probable that Eusebius or his transcriber made an omission 
in copying off the catalogue, — a like omission to which all admit 
to have been made in transcribing the list of Origen, which I shall 
next adduce. I wish you, however, duly to consider this testi- 
mony of Melito, given under circumstances so favorable to accu- 
racy on the subject. 

Origen flourished, as you will remember, a.d. 230. Of his learn- 
ing and standing in the early Church, I need not speak again. 
He spent his life in Egypt and Palestine, and was almost the only 
Father, besides Jerome, who understood the Hebrew language. 
His catalogue of the books of the Old Testament has been pre- 
served by Eusebius.f He proposes to give them as the Hebrews 
had transmitted them, and prefaces his catalogue with the remark, 
that they were twenty -two in number according to the number of 
letters in their alphabet. He then gives the list of the books both 
by their Greek and Hebrew names, combining them, as he says, 
after the manner of the Jeivs, exactly as we have done in making 
out the testimony of Josephus, — thus showing the correctness of 
our count in exhibiting the testimony of that distinguished Jew, 
and the identity of the Jewish Canon as described by him with 
our own Old Testament. Origen's catalogue also agrees exactly 
with ours, except that he unites with Jeremiah and his Lamenta- 
tions what he calls the Epistle, and omits the minor Prophets, 
thus making the number of books only tiuenty-one. What he 
means by the Epistle, critics are not agreed. It is generally 
conceded, however, that the Apocryphal Epistle of Jeremiah was 
never admitted by the Jews into their Canon : and it is, therefore, 
most probable that the Epistle, referred to by Origen, is one incor- 
porated in the book as we now have As to the twelve Minor 
Prophets, always counted as one book and written on one roll, it is, 
I may say, certain that the omission of them is a mistake of Eu- 

* Eichhorn, Einleitung in d. A. T. § 52. f Eicseb. Ecc. Hist. b. vi. c. 25. 

\ See however Havernick, Einleitung in d. A. T. § 15. Eichhorn, ib. § 54. 



176 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



sebius or a transcriber, not a defect in Origen's catalogue. They 
are necessary to make up the whole number twenty-two, stated in 
his prefatory remark: they are found in Ruffinus' translation of 
this same catalogue and in Hilary's Prologue to the Psalms, which, 
according to Jerome, was taken mostly from Origen :* they are 
included in Origen's celebrated work, the Hexapla : he also wrote 
a Commentary upon them, in twenty-five volumes, which were 
still extant in the time of Eusebius:t and he quotes them in his 
w 7 orks that have come down to us, as of equal authority with the 
other books of the Old Testament. I will only add, that, at the 
end of his catalogue, he expressly excludes the books of the Mac- 
cabees. He sometimes quotes some of the Apocryphal books of 
the Old as well as of the New Testament, as sacred : but it is 
evident from his catalogues and statements found in his works, 
that, by such epithets, he did not mean to designate them as be- 
longing to the Sacred Canon of Inspired Scriptures, but only as 
good books proceeding from men whose minds were renewed and 
enlightened by the Spirit of God.* 

I can only refer to the catalogues of Athanasius, Cyril of Jeru- 
salem, the Council of Laodicea, Epiphanius, Gregory Nazianzen, 
and Amphilochius. They all agree with our Old Testament 
Canon, except that several of them, after Melito, omit the book of 
Esther, and, besides, mention Baruch and the Epistle, with Jere- 
miah, whose prophecies, as we have them, probably include all 
that these writers meant. All of them reduce the number of 
books to twenty-two, by combining them after the manner of the 
Jews so as to accord with the number of the letters in the Hebrew 
Alphabet ; and several of them expressly exclude fewer or more 
of the Apocryphal books by name, — mentioning however, at the 
same time, that they were read in the Churches and by private 
Christians as profitable works, especially for Catechumens. Dis- 
missing these with this brief notice, 

I adduce next the more important testimony of Jerome, the 
most learned, as we have seen, of the Latin Fathers. He spent 
the latter and principal part of his life in Palestine, diligently pros- 
ecuting Biblical Literature ; and besides his general attainments, 
he was well acquainted with Hebrew, and got most of his Hebrew 
learning from Jewish teachers. He was, therefore, peculiarly 
qualified to state accurately, the Canon of the Jewish Scriptures, 

* Eichhorn, Einleitung in d. A. T. § 54. f Euseb. Ecc. Hist b. vL c 36. 

\ Thoiwell, Arguments of Romanists, &c. letter xv. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



177 



as received both by the Jews and by Christians. His works fur- 
nish ns several Catalogues, all of which agree exactly with our 
Old Testament Canon. In his famous Prologus Galeatus,* he 
states that the Hebrews reckoned twenty-two volumes (or books) 
after the number of letters in their Alphabet. He then enumer- 
ates five books of the Law, eight of the Prophets, and nine of the 
Hagiographa, in all twenty-two: — thus preserving the same general 
division of the books into three classes, which we have seen was 
prevalent at and before the time of our Saviour, but arranging 
the books under the last two classes differently from Josephus, and 
possibly from the prevalent custom of earlier times,t and following 
the arrangement of the Jewish Rabbins. The arrangement of 
the books, however, does not at all affect the testimony for the 
purpose for which I adduce it. The evidence of Jerome remains 
incontestable, that the ancient Jewish Canon w T as identically the 
same as our present Old Testament Canon. " This prologue," he 
continues, " I write as a preface to all the books to be translated 
by me from the Hebrew into Latin, that we may know that all 
the books which are not of this number are to be reckoned 
Apocryphal :"t and then especially mentions the Wisdom of /Solo- 
mon, the book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, commonly called 
Ecclesiasticus or Wisdom of Sirach, Judith, Tobit, and the 
Shepherd, as not in the Canon. In his preface to the books of 
Solomon, after mentioning the book of Jesus, the son of Sirach, 
and the Wisdom of Solomon, he says, that " as the Church read 
the books of Judith and Tobit and the Maccabees, but did not 
admit them among its Canonical Scriptures, so also it might read 
these two books for the edification of the people, but not for estab- 
lishing the authority of the doctrines of the Church." He trans- 
lated, indeed, the books of Judith and Tobit at the desire of his 
friends ; but in the preface to each he brands them as Apocryphal, 
and not received by the Jews. In the prologue to his translation 

*The preface to his Latin translation of the books of Samuel and Kings, — the first 
that he made. " Hie prologus Scripturarum," says he, " quasi galeatum principium 
omnibus libris quo3 de Hebrseo vertimus in Latinum convenire potest, ut scire valea- 
mus quicquid extra hos est inter Apocrypha esse ponendum." 

f See Stuart on the 0. T. § 12. Comp. further Lardner, Works, vol. ii. pp. 543-547. 
Hengstenberg, Beitrage, i. pp. 23 seq. Havernick, Einleitung, i. § § 9, 11, 14. Eich- 
horn, Einleitung, i. § § 7, 8. Jerome also states that some enrolled Ruth and Lamen- 
tations among the Hagiographa, and thus, by counting them separately from Judges 
and Jeremiah respectively, made out twenty-four books. So we fiud them in the 
Talmud. No particular order of arrangement seems to have universally prevailed. 

\ See the original, note, * above. 

12 



178 THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



of Jeremiah, he says, he does not translate the book of Baruch, 
because it was not in the Hebrew, nor received by the Hebrews : 
and, for the same reason, in the prologue to his Commentary on 
Jeremiah, he declines to explain it, as also the Pseudipigraphal 
Epistle of Jeremiah. In the preface to his translation of Daniel, 
he says that the Jews did not have in their (Hebrew) copies of the 
book the Story of Susannah, nor the Song of the Three Children 
in the furnace, nor the Fables of Bel and the Dragon, and that 
Christians were ridiculed for paying so much regard to them. 

This testimony of Jerome is as satisfactory as we could desire. 
The Sacred Canon as received by the Jews in their Hebrew copies, 
consisted of the very books that make up our Old Testament 
Janon, and of no others. Other books indeed were read by 
Christians, — as Josephus says, without mentioning names, that 
some were by Jews ; — and it would appear from some of the cat- 
alogues to which I have referred, that some of them (Baruch and 
the Epistle of Jeremiah) were very possibly, from ignorance of 
the Hebrew language and inadvertence to the Jewish custom, ad- 
mitted into the Canon of the Old Testament. But it is the un- 
equivocal testimony of Jerome, than whom no one was more 
competent to speak in the case, that none of them were received 
by the Jews as canonical, and that Christians ought to use them, 
as generally the churches did use them, like other useful books, 
only for edification, and not for establishing doctrines. 

The last testimony which I shall adduce from the early Chris- 
tian writers is that of Ruffinus, the contemporary of Jerome, at 
first his friend but afterwards his enemy. His testimony is brief, 
but to the purpose. In his explication of the Apostles' Creed, he 
proposes to enumerate the books, for both the Old and New Tes- 
taments, which had been handed down by the Fathers as inspired 
by the Holy Spirit, — and proceeds :* " Of the Old Testament, in the 
first place, are the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 
Numbers, Deuteronomy. After these are Joshua, the son of Nun, 
and the Judges, together with Ruth. Next the four books of the 
kingdoms, which the Hebrews reckon two : the book of the Re- 
mains, which is called Chronicles : and two books of Ezra, which 
by them are reckoned one : and Esther. The Prophets are 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel; and besides, one book of 
the twelve Prophets. Job also, and the Psalms of David. Solo- 
mon has left three books to the churches, the Proverbs, Ecclesias- 
* Lardner's Works, vol. ii. p. 573. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



179 



tes, and the Song of Songs. With these they conclude the num- 
ber of the books of the Old Testament." He then gives the New 
Testament precisely as ours, and continues : " These are the vol- 
umes which the Fathers have included in the Canon, and out of 
which they would have us prove the doctrines of our faith." He 
then adds, that there were other books which were not canonical, 
but had been called by his forefathers ecclesiastical ; — mentions 
such both for the Old and New Testaments ; and concludes : 
" All which they would have to be read in the churches, but not 
to be alleged by way of authority for proving articles of faith." 

Such is the testimony of Ruffinus. "He was," says Dr. Lard- 
ner, "a learned man, well acquainted both with the Greek and 
the Latin writers of the Church, and had travelled. He was born 
in the western part of the empire : but he was also acquainted 
with the Christians in Egypt and Palestine, where he had resided 
a good while." I only add that he combines the books, as others 
before him had done, after the Jewish manner : and thus the 
Jewish Canon, as stated by him also, was evidently the same as 
our Old Testament. It deserves also to be noted that the books, 
in the order in which he mentions them, maybe divided into three 
classes precisely corresponding with the division of Josephus: 1st, 
Five of the Law. 2d. Thirteen of the Prophets. 3d. Four of 
Hymns and Practical Books: — thus farther clearing and confirm- 
ing the invaluable testimony of that distinguished author. 

Thus, I think, it is clearly made out from the testimony of the 
early Christian writers who have given us catalogues, that the 
Jewish Canon as endorsed by our Saviour and his Apostles was 
precisely the same as that of our Old Testament. It appears 
indeed that other books were read in the churches, and it is possi- 
ble that some of them even found their way into some of the cat- 
alogues. But, even granting that the authors of these catalogues 
meant other compositions than those now in our Canon, and that, 
through ignorance of the Hebrew language and of the Jewish 
custom, they supposed them to belong to the Canon of authorita- 
tive Scriptures, the testimony is conclusive, that the books which 
the ancient Jews received as such, and which ancient Christians 
who were best informed received as such, were precisely those and 
only those, which we receive at the present day. 

4. But I appeal for further proof of this identity to the ancient 
direct oriental versions of the Old Testament, and to the uni- 
versal consent of the Jews of all ages. 



180 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 



"The Syriac Version, called the Peshito," says De Wette,* 
"seems to be one of the oldest translations of the Bible." Some 
think that the translation of the Old Testament was made be- 
fore Christ; but the great majority of critics put it soon after, 
ft adheres closely to the Hebrew text, and embraces all the books, 
and only the canonical books of our Old Testament.t This tes- 
timony from a neighboring country, so mixed up with Jewish 
affairs in the later periods of their commonwealth, is very im- 
portant. 

But we have also Chaldee Paraphrases or Targums, as they are 
commonly called, two of which are very ancient, and none of 
them later than the 9th century. They are generally supposed 
to have originated in the paraphrastic interpretations of the He- 
brew Scriptures by the Rabbins, as they were read in the Jewish 
synagogues. That of Onkelos on the Law and that of Jonathan 
Ben Uzziel on the Prophets, according to the Talmudic arrange- 
ment mentioned by Jerome, are generally referred to the age of 
Christ, though some place them before, others somewhat later. 
These and all the other Targums, embracing each only a portion 
of the books, but all together embracing all the books except 
Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel, — which for peculiar reasonst were 
omitted, — contain none other than the books of our Old Testa- 
ment Canon. 

Indeed all Jewish writers from Onkelos to the present time, the 
Talmudists, the Masorets, the Historians, the Grammarians, the 
Commentators, — all, with remarkable unanimity, agree in regard 
to the ancient Jewish Canon, and hold this to be the same as 
our Old Testament. Christians and Jews have always met here 
as on a common platform. 

5. Finally, the internal testimony conspires with the external, 
now adduced, to show the identity of our Old Testament Canon 
with the authentic Jewish Scriptures endorsed by our Saviour 
and his Apostles. 

* De Wette on the 0. T. (Parker) § 64. Comp. Eichhorn, Einleitung, § 248. 

f The Syriac Version of the Apocrypha does not belong to this Version. De 
Wette as above, § 64. Eichhorn, Einleitung, § 252. Havernick, Einleitung, § S3. 

\ Havernick says, " The reason of this lies no doubt in the scrupulosity of the 
later Jews, who believed that the Chaldean Version of the two books might after- 
wards easily be confounded with the original texts, and thus prove injurious to the 
pure preservation of the latter." Portions of both Ezra and Daniel are written in 
Chaldee, and Nehemiah was reckoned with Ezra. Kitto's Cyc. Bib. Lit. Art. ' Daniel, 
Book of." Havernick, Einleitung in d. A. T. i. § 82. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



181 



I can here only indicate the line of evidence which my time 
does not allow me to pursue. — We can trace through the volume 
the marks hoth of stability and of progress in the Hebrew lan- 
guage, precisely correspondent with what we should have ex- 
pected from our knowledge of the history, habits, and circum- 
stances of the nation. The circumstantial narrations and minute 
allusions, which pervade the volume, evince the intimate ac- 
quaintance of the writers with the relations of the times in which 
they lived and of which they wrote, and the utter absence alike 
of all disposition to deceive and of all fear of detection. The 
doctrines which are taught and the duties which are inculcated 
consist, as far as reason can judge, with the glory of God and 
the nature and relations of man; while they form, together with 
the revelations and institutions which are so peculiar to the 
volume, the long but requisite preface and introduction to the 
New Testament, which records their more perfect development 
and fulfilment. It matters not that we be able to determine the 
author of each particular book. It is enough that we know the 
names and ages and characters of the principal authors, and that 
we have the testimony of Christ and his Apostles, that they all 
proceeded from men who wrote as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost, and, therefore, constitute a part of the Revelation of God. 

Thus, my hearers, have I endeavored to vindicate the claims 
of our Old and New Testaments, to be the Canon of Divine 
Truth. I could wish that my time had allowed the fuller pres- 
entation of some branches of the evidence, that you might re- 
ceive its whole and just impression. But I trust that enough has 
been said to establish the conviction in your minds, that the 
volume before us comes to us with the marks of truth and the 
seal of God ; and that he who refuses to read, and understand, 
and believe, must, if he will be consistent, consign all the past to 
barren skepticism ; or deny that man is responsible for his faith, 
even where God has made known the truth : and, unless all his- 
tory be a lie, may expect at the last to be confounded for his un- 
belief. 

But I have yet to prove the integrity of the text of the sacred 
Scriptures. 

V. My fifth and last proposition, then, is that the text of the 
Old and New Testaments has not suffered materially in the 
transmission, or so as to invalidate, in the slightest degree, its 
divine and binding authority. 



182 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



I readily admit that the text has suffered some. I admit that 
no miraculous influence has preserved it from errors, which 
naturally creep into all writings that are frequently copied, how- 
ever carefully. But I assert that, in the good providence of God, 
such has been the care and such have been the causes that have 
operated to preserve the text of the sacred Scriptures, that no 
such corruption has ever befallen it as at all to destroy its validity, 
or the binding authority of the truths which it contains. I affirm, 
that of no ancient writings whatever, is the integrity of the text 
so demonstrable and unimpeachable. History shows that the 
sacred Scriptures, — as we should have anticipated from their 
origin and nature, — have from the beginning been sought, and 
studied, and copied, and quoted, and compared, and translated, 
and commented, and discoursed on, as no other books have ever 
been: and thus we have, at once, the surest guarantee for the 
preservation of both the Canon and the Text. 

I shall first prove the integrity of the text of the Old Testa- 
ment, and then that of the New. 

A. First, then, the integrity of the text of the Old Testa- 
ment. 

The proof of this lies in the circumstances which, at least, 
would seem to render wilful or accidental corruption of the text 
to any important extent impossible, and in the evidence that no 
such corruption has in fact ever taken place. 

I argue then, first, that anterior to the time of Christ, the num- 
ber of copies in circulation would greatly, if not effectually pre- 
vent the corruption of the text. 

A copy of the Law and of the subsequent sacred writings was 
kept deposited in the Temple. This appears from numerous hints 
in the Scriptures, from the testimony of Josephus, from the custom 
of ancient nations generally, and from the probability of the 
thing in itself.* The king of the nation was required to keep a 
copy of the Law for his own guidance and observance. The 
priests and magistrates must necessarily have had copies to study, 
in order to perform aright their various functions. The Law was 
required to be read to the people every seventh year at the Feast 
of Tabernacles. Parents were required to teach it to their chil- 
dren, by the wayside and by the fireside. It stands to reason 
that the pious portion of the people would desire, and, when it 

* Comp. Deut. xxxi. Josh. xxiv. 26. 1 Sard. x. 25. Joseph. Ant. Jud. iii. 1. SrjXol 81 
tv tw tffco avaKCi^ivr] ypacpfj k. t, X.andv. 1. SriXovrai Jta rwv avaKZijiivwv ivriokpu ypanparuv. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



183 



was possible to meet the expense, would actually possess copies 
of what they believed to be the Law and the Word of God. I 
know, indeed, that in the days of Josiah, after the long and wicked 
reign of his grandfather, Manasseh, and the shorter, but no less 
wicked reign of Anion, his father, the Law would seem to have 
lain in the Temple a neglected and almost forgotten book ;* and 
in every generation, we may easily believe that the wicked and 
the unbelieving cared little for the Word of God. But there were 
never wanting those who feared God and trembled at his word. 
Even in the reign of wicked Ahab and Jezebel there were seven 
thousand such in Israel alone, who had not bowed the knee to 
Baal. Amongst all these it is utterly incredible that there were 
not copies of the sacred Scriptures. 

I argue, secondly, that after the separation of the ten tribes 
under Jeroboam, the son of Nebat (b.c. 975), the mutual jealousy 
between Israel and Judah, and later between the Jews and Sa- 
maritans, would serve to guard the sacred Scriptures. 

Notwithstanding the idolatry of Israel, it is clear that they 
had Priests and Prophets and righteous men amongst them. 
Where these were, there were always fewer or more copies of the 
sacred Scriptures. Piety cannot subsist without them. The Sa- 
maritans, who succeeded the Israelites in Northern Palestine after 
they had been carried into captivity, had, as we know, copies of 
the Law which they cherished. The jealousy, which was strong 
between Israel and Judah, became still stronger between the 
Jews and the Samaritans, and was of a religious, as well as a 
political nature. It is obvious that this jealousy would operate 
powerfully to guard the portions of the Divine word which they 
received in common. 

I argue, thirdly, that the existence of inspired Prophets in 
Israel and Judah till after the captivity, insured the sound preser- 
vation of the sacred text until the prophetical Spirit had departed 
from the nation.t 

It is generally conceded — as it is uniform Jewish tradition, 
and the substance and position of the book in the sacred volume 
favors, — that Malachi was the last of the Prophets, about b.c. 
400. Until this time there had been a regular succession of 

* 2 King3 xxii. 8 seq. 

\ In the Pirka Aboth, one of the oldest books of the Talmud, and the tract Baba 
Bathra in the Babylonian Gemara, we find the Jewish tradition that, after Moses and 
the Elders, the sacred books were watched over by the Prophets. 



184 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



Prophets, sometimes several at the same period, amongst the cov- 
enant people of God. Of many of these we have writings in our 
Canon : but we hear nothing from them of any effort to corrupt 
the Word of God. That the Prophets, who had so much zeal for 
the Lord of Hosts, and who so often came, not only with a word 
of consolation to the faithful, but with a burden of reproofs xmd 
judgments for the wicked and unbelieving, should have lifted no 
voice of denunciation against the impious corrupters of God's 
word, if such there had been, is utterly incredible. They often 
condemn the wicked and pretended Prophets who perverted the 
message and word of the Lord, and warn the people against 
them, and appeal to the Law and to the testimony : but we never 
hear the charge of corrupting the sacred Scriptures, either through 
remissness or design. I conclude, therefore, that the attempt was 
never made, and that had it been made, it could never have suc- 
ceeded. 

I argue, fourthly, for the integrity of the Old Testament text 
from the reverence which the Jews are known to have entertained 
for their sacred books. 

Had we no testimony to the fact, we should yet, from the very 
nature of the case, believe that a people who professed to have 
Jehovah as their covenant-God, and who regarded their sacred 
Scriptures as his authoritative word, would never permit these to be 
wilfully or negligently corrupted so as to invalidate their authority. 
It would be a violent supposition that any nation, possessing such 
books, would allow them to be multiplied, or diminished, or changed, 
except by what was regarded as authority from heaven. But we 
have satisfactory testimony on the subject. We have already 
heard Josephus say, "It is evident from fact how we believe in 
our Scriptures : for through so long a period already elapsed, no 
one has dared to add anything, or to take from them, or to make 
alterations ; but it is implanted in all Jews from their very birth 
to consider them oracles of God, and to abide by them, and for 
them, if need be, cheerfully to die."* The strength of the expres- 
sions of the historian finds justification only in the deep reverence 
which, we must believe, was entertained by the people for the 
sacred writings, however much they may have disregarded them 
in their practice. 

But that down to this period — for Josephus, you remember, was 
contemporary v~ith the Apostles, — the Old Testament Scriptures 
* Cont Apion. i. § 8. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 



185 



had been transmitted in all due integrity, I argue, fifthly and con- 
clusively, from the fact already proven, that Christ and his 
Apostles constantly appealed to them as authoritative, and conse- 
quently endorse them as valid. As the Prophets had done with 
the false teachers of their day, so Christ reproves the Pharisees 
and Scribes for setting aside the Word of God by their vain tradi- 
tions ; and the Apostles charge upon false Judaizing teachers in 
the Christian churches an improper use of the Old Testament 
institutions: but they never intimate that the Scriptures had been 
so corrupted, as at all to affect their integrity and Divine authority. 
On the contrary, they appeal to them, refer to them, and commend 
others for searching them as the Word of God, that they might 
prove their claims and the Divine authority for their procedure. 

Sixthly. Since the time of Christ, the same scrupulous regard 
of the Jews for the sacred text has continued to ensure its preser- 
vation. 

After the Babylonish captivity it had already become common, 
before the time of Christ, to read in their synagogues on the Sab- 
bath day, and expound both the Law and the Prophets. Of these 
synagogues, we learn, from the Rabbins, that there were nearly 
five hundred in Jerusalem, previously to its capture by the Ro- 
mans. They were also, and had been for some generations, and 
have continued to be, down to the present day, scattered in all the 
cities throughout the world, where there were Jews enough to 
keep them up. In all these the Law and the Prophets have con- 
tinued to be read, in Manuscripts written with the utmost care, 
according to the most rigid rules prescribed by their Rabbins, the 
antiquity of which indeed it is now impossible to determine, but 
whose minute and punctilious exactness shows the exceeding care 
which this people have always taken of their sacred records. 

Seventhly. This wide-spread circulation of copies, in the Jev T ish 
synagogues, added to those which were now extensively found in 
private hands all over the world, rendered it utterly impossible for 
any successful combination to be formed, had the disposition or 
purpose ever been entertained, to corrupt the text of the sacred 
Scriptures. How has it ever been possible for the Jews or others, 
from what we know of their history since the day they were scat- 
tered from their capital and country, to effect a corruption of the 
sacred text thus spread over all the world ? 

Eighthly. The difficulty, — I should rather say, the impossi- 
bility, has been greatly increased by the translations, commen- 



186 THE AUTHOEITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 



taries, and quotations that were early made of the Old Testa- 
ment. The Septuagint (Greek) Version had been made several 
hundred years before Christ, and was early and has continued to 
be widely circulated. The Syriac Version was extensively used 
in the Eastern churches. The Greek Versions of Aquila, Sym- 
machus, and Theodotion, also had more or less circulation among 
both Jews and Christians. The Latin Versions anterior to 
Jerome, and finally his own, spread over the west, and at last, I 
may say, over the whole world. Origen and Jerome at least 
commented on the original Hebrew text, and their works were 
sought for and read. Commentaries were multiplied by others 
on the translations, and quotations both from the originals and 
the Versions were made by these distinguished Fathers and 
others, far too numerous to allow us for a moment even to dream 
that the original has been altered, and the translations, and com- 
mentaries, and quotations altered so as to conform with it. 

Ninthly. From the fifth to the tenth century Jewish doctors, 
or Masorites as they are commonly called, labored on the text of 
the Old Testament. They added vowels to the original conso- 
nants so as to preserve the traditionary reading, as also accents or 
signs to mark the punctuation and tone, and to regulate the 
can dilation of the Scriptures. They numbered the books, the 
grand and sub-divisions, the verses, the words, the letters. They 
ascertained the middle sections and the middle verses ; they 
counted how often each word and each letter occurred in each 
book and in the whole volume ; and recorded the results. All 
this and much else they did, partly useful and partly trifling ; but 
all helping, — though subsequent labors of like kind have not sus- 
tained all their enumerations, — to make it, if possible, still more 
impossible ever to corrupt the Scriptures in the future. 

Tentlily. From the time of Christ to the present day, Chris- 
tians and Jews have held the Old Testament Scriptures \n equal 
veneration. Their common interest in these ancient and sacred 
records early excited their mutual vigilance and jealousy: and 
we may have the strongest assurance froir the warm controver- 
sies that raged between them, from the very first, respecting 
Christ and his kingdom as the completion ind perfection of the 
Law and the Prophets, that neither would have ever permitted 
the Scriptures, which both held to be sacred, and which were the 
only common standard of appeal amongst them, to be corrupted 
by the other. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 



187 



Eleventhly. The Jews and the Samaritans had no dealings 
with each other. From thfc very origin of the latter, the former 
had always despised and hated them. From both these we have 
copies of the Pentateuch, — which were all that the Samaritans 
ever received. We compare them, and considering the time 
during which they have been separately transmitted, they re- 
markably agree. And it is reasonable to believe that the rest of 
the books, which only the Jews received, have been transmitted 
with equal care and accuracy. 

Lastly. We have numerous manuscripts more or less ancient ; 
the ancient paraphrases, versions, and quotations, have descended 
to us. We compare all these, and while we find such differences 
as we should have expected, — unless we had supposed a constant 
but needless miracle to be wrought, — we discover in fact a won- 
derful agreement. From these we derive our modern printed 
text : and we rely upon it, transmitted, and guarded, and cor- 
rected by these multiplied means, if not as containing in all 
cases the very words as they came from inspired men of old, yet 
at least as faithfully exhibiting the revealed will of God, and, 
with trifling exceptions, in the very words of the Holy Ghost. 

So much, my hearers, for the integrity of the text of the Old 
Testament. By parallel, but shorter and stronger arguments, I 
prove, 

B. The integrity of the text of the New Testament. 

And first, the copies were early and far too generally diffused 
for corruption ever to have been possible. 

Let it be remembered that the books of the New Testament 
were originally in the hands of those who, for the most part, if 
not without exception, had enjoyed amongst them the ministra- 
tions of the Apostles. As these admitted the authority and 
received the doctrines of the Apostles, they could not only judge 
of the general agreement of any writing with those doctrines and 
ministrations, but when such writings came to them duly cer- 
tified, as the genuine writings of the Apostles always did,* they 
could have no motive to corrupt them, but would be prompted by 
every rational and pious consideration to preserve them. We 
have already seen that they were written in a language which 
was generally understood; and that, from the desire which 
naturally pervaded the churches to obtain copies of all the sacred 
writings, they were early and rapidly spread through the then 
* Comp. 1 Cor. xvi. 21. Gal. vi. 11. Col. iv. 18. 2 Thess. iii. IT 



188 THE AUTHOKITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



known world. Wherever Christianity had found a hold, — and 
infidelity itself is compelled to admit the unparalleled rapidity of 
its propagation, — there were more or less complete collections of 
the sacred books in the possession of the congregations, and often 
of private individuals. How then was it possible to alter them? 
What man, or what body of men, shall undertake to collect all 
these copies, and to induce the Christian world to consent to 
changes of their sacred books? — Books, which they believed to 
have been written by men duly approved as inspired of God, and 
revealing truths on which, amidst much persecution and often 
the sacrifice of everything in the present life, they reposed, with 
strong faith, all their glorious and cherished hopes for the life 
which is to come? The books continued to spread, as Chris- 
tianity spread, more and more: and in every succeeding age'it 
became still more impossible for evil-disposed men, had they been 
bold enough to attempt it, to effect any extensive corruption of 
the sacred text. 

Secondly. We have seen that a Syriac and, probably, several 
Latin versions were early prepared, — the latter embracing all the 
books and widely circulating in the second century, the former 
embracing nearly all the books, possibly before the close of the 
first century, but according to the general opinion early in the 
second. These were soon succeeded by others which circulated 
in the South and East and North, but chiefly by that of Jerome 
in the fourth century, which extended South and West, and finally 
obtained an authority and a circulation in the Roman Church, 
which has never been accorded to any other translation. Com- 
mentaries upon the different books were early and greatly multi- 
plied. Harmonies of the historical portions were composed ; hom- 
ilies w 7 ere written and published ; quotations abounded in almost 
every Christian writer, many of whose works have descended to 
us though the greater part have perished. How, I ask, was it 
possible for any man or set of men, proposing to alter the original 
Scriptures, to collect all these with the consent of the Christian 
world, and alter them so as to make them conform to the altered 
texts? The undertaking, of all the vain things that vain men 
have imagined, would have been the most egregiously monstrous, 
— the very idea is absurd ! 

Thirdly. Divisions and heresies sprang up in the churches 
even in the times of the Apostles. Whilst they lived, they them- 
selves and such of their writings as w 7 ere already in the possession 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



189 



of the churches, constituted the standard of appeal in every con- 
troversy. When they were dead their writings remained the sole 
authoritative standard, to which all could appeal, and did appeal, 
with common consent. In succeeding ages the sects multiplied 
as the Church increased, until at last it was rent in twain, — which 
division remains to the present day. How could any of these va- 
rious sects succeed in corrupting the Scriptures, without the speedy 
detection of the rest? And how could the consent of all be gotten 
to alter the only common and acknowledged platform of inspired 
truth ? 

Fourthly. History is silent as to any such general corruption. 
It brands with infamy a Marcion who. it says, rejected most and 
mangled the rest of the writings of the Apostles : but it says not a 
word of such a daring and preposterous attempt, as the corruption 
of all the copies of the sacred Scriptures. Could it have been 
done, and the Christian world not know it? Could it have been 
known, and the voice of the Christian Church not be raised 
against it? Could history have been silent here, and not be rec- 
reant to her duty? But she is silent; — but silent only because 
she had nothing to record. The story that she tells all along 
concerning the Scriptures, is, that they were circulated and used 
and loved in one form or another so greatly and so universally, that 
an attempt to corrupt or to destroy them must have created a dis- 
turbance and clamor in the Christian world, which would have 
handed down the names of those who attempted thus to rob the 
Church of her birthright and all souls of their chart and charter 
to heaven, as impious rebels against the God of grace, and conspir- 
ators with Satan to keep the world enveloped in darkness, and 
shrouded in the gloom of eternal death ! But she knows and 
tells of no such impiety and madness, — and simply becauoe there 
was none. 

Fifthly. The great facts and doctrines, which were believed 
to be taught in the New Testament by the different sects in the 
ancient Church, are still believed to be taught in our New Testa- 
ment, and are proved by the same texts. Some of these are the 
great facts and doctrines which the early infidels most violently 
assailed ; and about which there was most controversy in the 
Church. The passages which contain them, therefore, are the 
very passages which there was most temptation to alter. But it 
is obvious that precisely these passages, from their very notoriety 
and importance to one or the other of the opposing parties, would 



190 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



be most securely guarded against all corruption. The natural 
conclusion is, that the whole has been faithfully preserved. 

Finally. We have old manuscripts of the New Testament 
that date back within a few centuries of the Apostles ; and hun- 
dreds of others of more recent date, and from various countries: 
we have still, in whole or in part, the more important ancient 
versions, — the Syriac, the old Italian, the Coptic, the Sahidic, the 
Vulgate of Jerome, the Ethiopic, the Gothic, the Armenian and 
other versions. We have quotations in writers of every age and 
of every nation which Christianity penetrated, so numerous, that 
were manuscripts and versions all gone, we could easily make out 
from them alone the great facts and doctrines of Christianity held 
by believers in every generation : we have commentaries and har- 
monies and homilies : — I say, we have all these to compare with 
one another and with our received text; and the comparison 
shows an agreement amongst them, that demonstrates the correct- 
ness of all our other arguments, and undeniably proves the gen- 
eral integrity of our New Testament text. 

I return then to the affirmation, that of no books so ancient 
has the text been so certainly and so well preserved, as that of 
the books which compose our Old and New Testaments. There 
are indeed here and there passages, and still oftener clauses, the 
integrity of which there may be some, perhaps good reason to 
suspect: and there are hundreds and thousands of minor varia- 
tions brought to light by a careful comparison of manuscripts, 
versions, and quotations. But of these the great majority do not 
affect the sense in the least, and could not, therefore, be expressed 
in a good translation : and where they do, either a judicious criti- 
cism can determine the true reading, or it is unimportant to the 
Christian system, and generally to the passage itself, which of 
several readings, that may be about equally sustained, shall be 
adopted as original. The very means of multiplying the various 
readings, viz., the great number of documents to be compared, 
have always furnished so many effectual guards to prevent cor- 
ruption of the text, and furnish now ample means for correct- 
ing it, where correction is needed. It is precisely those books, 
classic as well as sacred, of which we have fewest manuscripts 
and other documents, and consequently comparatively few various 
readings, that the text is most liable to suspicion. On the other 
hand, the text of those is meet certain for which we have the 
greatest number of documents, especially manuscripts, to com- 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. 



191 



pare, and consequently the greatest number of various readings 
actually occurring. 

Thus has Providence, by natural means, and without a miracle, 
preserved the text of all the sacred Scriptures : and it is vain for 
skepticism longer to hope to find a cover for its unbelief under the 
flimsy pretext of its corruption, either accidental or designed. The 
worst text that could be published on the authority of any Manu- 
scripts, would not alter a single phase of Christianity. 

I have now. my hearers, endeavored to show 

I. That the books of the New Testament are genuine. 

II. That the history contained in the New Testament is true. 

III. That, therefore, Christ was Divine and his Apostles inspir- 
ed, and consequently our New Testament was from God. 

IV. That our Old Testament Canon is the same as the ancient 
Jewish Canon which they used and endorsed ; and consequently 
that this also was from God. 

Y. That neither the text of the Old Testament, nor that of the 
New, has so suffered in the transmission as to invalidate, in the 
slightest degree, their Divine and binding authority. 

If I have succeeded in making these propositions good, then are 
our sacred Scriptures the Word of God, and Christianity is Divine. 
The argument for the truth of Christianity derived from the 
history of her Sacred Books, let it be observed, is in no manner 
affected by the doubts of some, in ancient and modern times, re- 
specting the genuineness of a few of the books. We may give up 
all that were anciently doubted, and all which any now can with 
any reason regard as doubtful, and the substance of Revelation 
remains the same. Not a single doctrine, or duty, or promise, or 
prophecy, or type, or important fact would fall from the System. 
On the basis of the bo* 'ks, which a sober criticism has always 
admitted to be entirely unquestionable, Christianity stands firm 
and complete. To demolish it infidelity must show, not that some 
of the books in the Sacred Canon have been and are doubted, but 
that all the books, each as well as all together, are forgeries : and 
it then devolves on her to write the history and explanation of 
Christianity as a great fact in the world, running back through 
successive generations to a definite period and a particular people, 
as well known to us as any other period and people in the pas 
as also the history and explanation of Judaism, the great foresh 
owing type, reaching far back into antiquity, confirmed by all 
cient monuments, and ever steadfastly asserting its origin from 



192 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 



Let it be duly considered that the Old Testament was written 
by different men, during a period of about one thousand years; 
and the New Testament by different authors, living in the same 
age, some four hundred years after: and I think it will appear, 
that the progressive development of the Revelation through so 
long a period, and by the instrumentality of so many men in suc- 
cession ; the unity and harmony which, notwithstanding, runs 
through and binds together the whole ; and the entire and pecu- 
liar correspondence between the Old Testament and the New, 
forming as they do, a completed system of types and realities, 
prophecies and fulfilments, promises and curses, doctrines and 
duties, at once elevated, sublime, pure, and true; — all together con- 
stitute an argument for the Divine origin of the Christian religion, 
as forcible and convincing, as it is unique, in its character. I 
challenge the production of a similar phenomenon from the whole 
v ange of literature ancient and modern, sacred and profane ; and 
demand a satisfactory solution of this on any other hypothesis than 
that, which maintains that the authors of these books wrote by 
command of God, and as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 

I commend them, therefore, to you as the Law and the Testi- 
mony of God. As he gave them, so has he preserved them ; and 
they come down to us freighted with his pure and precious and 
imperishable truths. Their entrance giveth light and liberty and 
life. They reclaim the vicious, they establish the righteous ; they 
humble the proud, they exalt the meek ; they break the oppres- 
sor, they loose the prisoner; they still the avenger, they strengthen 
the weak. They chasten mirth, they comfort grief; they en- 
lighten life, they conquer death. They expose our iniquity, and 
provide a ransom ; they reveal God's wrath and offer his grace. 
They proclaim our ruin, and publish a Saviour; they warn us of 
hell, and point us to heaven. "I testify," therefore, "unto every 
man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any 
man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the 
plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take 
away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take 
away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the Holy City, 
and out of the things which are written in this book." Rev. 
xxii, 18, 19. 



Cjie Clinnirtn* nf %tm Clmst, 

AN 

ARGUMENT FOR THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY, 

BY 

REV. JAMES W. ALEXANDER, D.D., 

NEW YORK. 



In a contracted portion of ancient Asia, among a people seldom 
named by the elegant classics, and then only touched by the sa- 
tiric thong of Horace and Juvenal, or the caustic sneer of Taci- 
tus ; in a country without arts and refinements, and without 
other letters, certain books have been handed down, originating 
at distant epochs, and carefully preserved to our day. These 
writings are partly in the language of the nation, and partly in 
that of their conquerors. From so obscure an origin, these works 
have spread over a great part of the earth, and are rapidly pass- 
ing into every human language. Upon inspection they are found 
to lay claim to a divine origin; and this claim has been admitted, 
by numbers increasing with successive ages. In support of these 
extraordinary pretensions, two classes of argument have been 
alleged, one from external proof, the other from internal evidences. 
Of the latter there is one founded upon the singular fact, that the 
whole volume of doctrine, opinion and precept, in these books, 
revolves about the centre of an individual personage. Omitting 
for the present all other points, I invite you to consider the argu- 
ment in favor of Christianity, derived from the character of Jesus 
Christ. 

My first proposition is, that in the person of Jesus Christ, as 
presented in the Christian Scriptures, we have a perfect model of 
moral excellence. 

The founder of Christianity stands forth in a character abso- 
lutely original and unique. The attempt was never made to 
trace it to any foregoing exemplar. Neither history nor fiction 
approach to anything which could serve even as the germ of such 
a description. It is a quality to which justice is seldom done, 
perhaps from our extreme familiarity with every trait ; but it 
was doubtless felt by the great inquirers of antiquity, when first 
summoned into the sublime and winning presence. There are 



196 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



objects in nature, which previous to all scrutiny or analysis, strike 
us with the impression, This is unlike all we ever beheld before. 
Such is the august personality of Christ, while as yet unstudied 
in its more delicate lineaments. The picture is intensely and 
sublimely moral. With a reserve almost without a parallel, there 
is not a touch or color thrown in, to gratify even what might be 
considered a reasonable curiosity. Hence there is not a syllable 
respecting the outward figure, countenance, or demeanor of our 
Lord. Even the intellectual development is left under a veil; 
while the moral and spiritual representation stands out with the 
austere simplicity of a sculpture. 

Approaching more nearly, we observe that the character of 
Jesus is not such as would be produced by what is called the 
Spirit of the Age. In the philosophy of history there is an opin- 
ion, common if not prevalent, which refers every commanding 
personage to the necessary progress of the race. In the judgment 
of this transcendental school, the man is the product of the juncture, 
a necessary resultant of forces just concentrated in mature action. 
That Christ is not such a character, must be obvious at a glance. 
It was not in subjugated, unlettered Judaism to give birth to such 
an advent. The effect is too colossal for such a cause. It was 
not even the felicitous anticipation of an age about to dawn. It 
is not the embodied genius of any age. The ideal is one which 
no age of human progress has yet overtaken. We are the more 
surprised and confounded when we see its matchless proportions 
emerging from the mists and corruptions of such a period and 
such a nation. I will go further and assert that the character of 
Jesus Christ is one which would have been beyond the power of 
human conception, before its actual appearance. 

If we look then more nearly, and inquire what accidental at- 
tractions surround the portrait here given, we find the character 
entirely devoid of the glare which beams from outward circum- 
stance. As if to escape every appendage which belongs to the 
brilliant personages of human annals, and especially the subjects 
of fiction in all its forms, Jesus Christ is represented on the stage 
of simple and ordinary life. There is nothing of secular heroism. 
Even the platform of the events is a remote corner of ancient 
civilization, and a contemned province of the Empire. The 
action, though often great and startling, is within the circle of 
familiar life. The earthly origin of our Lord is obscure and mis- 
apprehended ; and he walks among men in humble garb, as the 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



197 



son of a carpenter, consorting with peasants and fishermen, in the 
most despised canton of his native tribes. Without possessions, 
without patronage, without any auxiliary of power or worldly 
greatness, he nevertheless shines with a lustre which many ages 
have not dimmed. From the frame of this lowliness, that coun- 
tenance of moral loveliness looks upon us with a mysterious and 
imperative fascination. It is manifest that the delineation owes 
not a single grace to the external charms. If we examine the 
progress of the unvarnished narrative, we detect no semblance of 
display. The very suspicion of human glory is precluded from 
every beholder's mind. Except when some great misery calls for 
the breaking forth of hidden power, Christ pursues the noiseless 
tenor of his way in a manner so natural and unobtrusive, that 
we almost forget the public offices which he is afterwards seen to 
assume. Retirement and even secrecy cause some of his most 
wonderful actions. 

But coming to that which is positive and essential in the moral 
image set before us, we are arrested by a trait which predominates 
over all : it is spotless Innocence. The testimony is of those who 
knew, that he was holy, harmless, undefined, and separate from 
sinners. He could challenge his most blood-thirsty enemies with 
the question, Which of you convinceth me of sin ? He did no 
harm, neither was guile found in his lips. A heavenly candor is 
radiated in every word and action. At the critical point of his 
last trial, no serious charge was advanced, and none whatever of 
moral import. False witnesses were sought in vain. The pure- 
ness of his character was known by the people, rehearsed by the 
wife of the procurator, asserted with reiteration by Pilate, avowed 
by the Roman centurion who stood guard at the cross, and attest- 
ed by the traitor, when he cried in the temple, I have betrayed 
the innocent blood. The enemies of Christianity have been too 
discreet to allege any blemish on the snow-white purity of Jesus. 
The virtue is immaculate, and has borne the inspection of ages. 
This is the more deserving of consideration, when we reflect that 
any age can discern spots upon a surface of alabaster ; and that 
one undeniable delinquency in the character of our Lord would 
instantly vacate his whole claim to perfection. But it has not 
been discovered, and it is by an association common to all Chris- 
tian nations that we connect with this impersonation of innocency 
the symbols of the lamb and the dove. 

But mere innocence may be tame and neutral, or it may be se- 



198 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



eluded and exempt from trial. The heavenly virtue of the Son of 
Man was not negative: it broke out into a running stream of 
well-doing. It was eminent activity. No biography in the world 
offers us a course of more ceaseless labor ; it is a record of unre- 
mitting toil, from the outset of his ministry. Though he invited 
his disciples to rest, he took little for himself; but lived in jour- 
neys, healings, teachings, and throngs of men. The glory of the 
picture is that it is Virtue in action. As little was it a recluse or 
cloistered virtue. It is easy to be good in aphorisms and in the 
schools. Jesus gave his lessons in no retreat of Speculation. 
He philosophized in no Academy, Lyceum, Stoa, or Tusculanum, 
but in barks, in peasants' cots, on highways, mountains, beside 
wells, and at tables, among the hum of men. As he taught (and 
what he taught he practised), he stood side by side with the mass 
of the people at his toils and in his sorrows; and this, which adds 
to the difficulty of example, unspeakably enhances its beauty. 
The greatest elevation of positive activity belongs to the excellence 
of our Lord's character. 

We must, however, contemplate the mode of this activity : it 
w r as more than all else Beneficence. On a topic which you have 
read and known from infancy, how can I enlarge without dis- 
paraging the memorial of your thoughts? Yet here lies the 
strength of our argument ; for here is infinite benevolence, em- 
bodied in palpable action. Selfishness had scarcely been stig- 
matized by the moralists ; and they had spoken of liberality and 
generosity for the most part in connection with human fame. 
With Jesus, it was the law of life. The most summary descrip- 
tion of his career is, that He went about doing good. To give 
the proofs of his love would be to read you the four Gospels. 
The bodies and the souls of men were both his care. With 
equal sincerity of heart he spoke often and long to the multitude, 
or aided in the handicraft of his disciples, or hung over the bier 
of the departed. Are any of his wonders acts of vengeance? 
Is there one of them which was not a burst of mercy? When 
was his hand ever lifted in anger? When did his countenance 
ever wear a scowl? What single sufferer did he ever thrust 
away ? When crowds hemmed him in, some to perplex, some to 
deride, and some to murder, did he ever decline to teach the in 
quiring? Who among us can number his benefactions ? What 
book can contain the history of his cures? While he healed, he 
preached : yea, while he gave truth, he gave life, health, salvation 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



199 



How prompt was his beneficence. My son dieth, said a certain 
nobleman. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way, thy son liveth. 
As Love was his great, his new, his last injunction to his disciples, 
so it was the reigning grace in his treatment of them ; the very 
inspiration of his farewell discourse, and the crowning charac- 
teristic of his conversations after being restored to them. Love 
actuated his itinerancy, on foot, over the rough hills and torrid 
plains of Palestine, and flowed out to the poor and the dying in 
streams of relief. It was love that was personified and held up 
to the view of angels and of God on that "place of skulls" and 
that cursed cross. All human writings afford no such examples 
of beneficence. 

But even benevolence has its modifications : that of Christ 
was displayed in singular tenderness and compassion. He 
taught to rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them 
that weep. Infinitely was he distant from the affected apathy of 
the Stoics. He was a son of woman ; and how much of tender 
manhood, of social, of strictly human affection, gushes forth in 
all the interviews with the family at Bethany, his sadness con- 
cerning Lazarus, his condolence, his tears — for " Jesus wept." 
How he hangs over lepers, cripples, blind men, lunatics and im- 
potent wretches ! Behold him at Nain, at Bethesda, at the Last 
Supper, and acknowledge not merely the good- will which relieves, 
but the most refined grace in the manner of relieving. So much 
of the mother and the sister, would in the hands of fictitious 
genius have degenerated into the soft, the timorous, and the 
effeminate ; but the divine pencil does not thus depict. B,y the 
most happy blending of opposites, we observe in the same subject 
the union of gentleness and force. 

There is a tendency to overrate what are called the masculine 
qualities of our nature; hence the overstrained effort and unnatu- 
ral paroxysms of epic heroes, and many real soldiers. The great 
forces which perform their part :n the heavenly spaces are silent. 
Such also is the usual state of true greatness. Our Lord's was 
such ; he did not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in 
the streets. Yet there was a reserve of energy, zeal and holy 
boldness, which on rare but fit occasions could flash from the inner 
sanctuary of his mysterious nature. We see almost with surprise 
the same arm which lifted up the sinking disciple scourging the 
money-changers in the temple. The same voice which breathed 
benediction on the poor and simple, is heard uttering woes against 



200 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



proud learning and hypocritical pretension, and this in the face of 
threats. It was to the great and powerful of his day that Christ 
said, O generation of vipers — Woe unto you serines and Pharisees ! 
It was to a prince on the throne that he sent, saying, Go ye and 
tell that fox, — Behold I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and 
to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. Intrepidity is 
requisite for the publication of unwelcome truth ; and our Saviour 
sometimes so spake, that not only were his adversaries rilled with 
rage, but "many of his disciples went back, and walked no more 
with him." Under his piercing discriminations and high claims, 
the Jews were indignant and even frantic, so that not content 
with reviling, they sought to kill him on the spot, and failing of 
this, obtained their hellish purpose in a more circuitous manner. 
Yet our Lord went calmly on, as wonderful in his courage as his 
love. 

Though the topic assigned debars me from exhibiting Christ's 
code of morals, as such, I am bound to allude to one of its qualities, 
as connected with his life. No ethical system was ever so severe, 
searching, and spiritual. He denounced the inward thought of 
evil. He pointed to anger as inchoate murder; to the two mites 
as outweighing all the donations of the rich ; and the ejaculation 
of the publican as heard beyond the longest prayers. He exposed 
the reigning righteousness of the most learned and sacred clergy 
as whited sepulchres and washed putrefaction. He claimed the 
supreme love of God and the entire denial of self. Such was the 
sternness of his ethical demands. Now the point to which I in- 
vite your attention is this, that when our Lord comes to treat 
with the person of offenders, there never was judge so benign and 
lenient. To the Samaritan adultress he makes the most explicit 
avowal of his mission, amidst the gentlest offers of forgiveness. 
To another offender, dragged into his presence by pharisaic cen- 
sors, he breathes the word of clemency, Woman . . . hath no 
man condemned thee? . . . Neither do I condemn thee: go, sin 
no more ! To the bosom friend who shamefully denied him, he 
gives no reproof, but the question, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest 
thou me? more than these? Ah, my brethren, how few of- us 
who claim to be disciples, have been able thus to mingle hatred 
of the sin, with benignity towards the sinner? 

It should be carefully noted by those who sometimes quote our 
Master against all outward observances of religion, that he was 
as remarkable for his observance of religious rites as for the ab- 



THE CHARACTER CF JESUS CHRIST. 



201 



sence of all superstition or formality. To the established usages 
of the Hebrew ritual, both in the temple and the synagogue, he 
.endered punctual regard. Again and again his voice was lifted 
up in social prayer. He rises a great while before day for solitary 
devotion. He withdraws himself into the wilderness to converse 
with God. He continues all night in prayer to God. At his 
baptism, his transfiguration, his agony, and on the cross, he 
prays. 

Now while thus devout, Jesus treats with disgust all the will- 
worship which passed in that day for religion. Witness the whole 
sermon on the Mount; the discourse respecting spiritual worship 
with the woman of Samaria ; the unshackled converse with pub- 
licans and sinners ; the bold refusal of fasts and washings and 
sabbatic extremes and uncommanded austerities. The voices of 
the populace tell us, as in echo, how he towered above all super- 
stition, which was really the religion of the world at that day. 
"Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? Behold, 
why do they on the Sabbath that which is not lawful? Why . . . 
eat bread with unwashen hands? Behold a man gluttonous, and 
a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners !" While there 
never was a moral teacher so full of true devotion, there never 
was one so remote from all that is ascetic. The element of pen- 
ance and self-torture is absent from the New Testament and its 
Great Subject. And this is a leading charm in this model of hu- 
manity. 

In common instances of virtue, we find gentleness and humility 
incompatible with decision, persistency and command : but not so 
with Christ. He is of all beings the most accessible. In no case 
does he manifest repulsion or undue reserve. His ear is open to 
the meanest and most misguided. The cases are too numerous 
for detail; from the time when, by Jordan, he turns to the two 
who follow him, saying, " Come and see," to the moment when he 
walks to Emmaus with Cleopas and his fellow. And as it regards 
Humility, a virtue missing in every pagan catalogue, he was its 
first teacher and example. For his mightiest deeds he sought no 
publicity, but repressed it by command. "See, thou say nothing 
to any man." "All aaen," said some, "seek for thee;" but he 
goes away to his work. " The Son of Man came not to be min- 
istered unto, but to minister." "I am among you as he that 
serveth." In his only progress of seeming triumph, he enters Je- 
rusalem on the lowliest of beasts ; and shortly after, we see him 



202 



THE CHARACTER OE JESUS CHRIST. 



stooping to wash his disciples' feet. Couple with this the traits 
of dignity and imperative sovereignty, and the result is amazing. 
There occurs no moment of misgiving or weakness. From the 
very beginning his eye is fixed on certainty of success. In no 
instance does he seek for aid or counsel. His plan is mature and 
unwavering, and looks to the spiritual conquest of the world, an 
idea too grand for the most soaring philosophy. 

Let me ask you to contemplate our Lord's contempt of what 
worldly men salute as greatness, in connection with his con- 
descension to the despised. If there were any to whom the edge 
of his censures were more keenly turned, it was the aspiring, the 
rich, the learned, and the great. It is the rich man, promising 
himself ease and pleasure, whom he denounces as a fool ; it is 
the dying beggar whom he transports to heaven. Among the 
beatitudes the leading welcome is to the poor, while the camel 
and the needle's eye furnish the symbol of the rich. There is 
not an approach to any courting of men in power, even for the 
best ends, but Jesus is eminently and beyond example the friend 
of the people. Among them were his cherished friends ; for 
never was falsehood more glaring than that which erases Friend- 
ship from the virtues of our Redeemer. Over the humiliations 
of his country he sighed ; for equally unjust is the assumption 
that Christianity repudiates Patriotism. The ordinary griefs of 
mankind moved his heart. He had compassion on the hunger- 
ing thousands, as on sheep without a shepherd. In every part 
of the land he was the instructor of the populace. Over the 
city where his blood was to be shed, he wept, saying, If thou 
hadst known ! And at another time, 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 
how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen 
doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not ! 

Joined with this love of his people, and the race, was a quality 
which merits our closest attention. The cry of patriotism some- 
times proceeds from fanaticism and faction, and under the colors 
of philanthropy we have sometimes discerned the torch and 
sword. The benevolence of Christ stands free from all taint of 
what is revolutionary. A single gesture would have raised that 
whole nation against the Roman ; but he uttered no breath 
against the government. The attempt was made to entrap him. 
as when they brought him the denarius, but his language was. 
"Render the efore unto Csssar the things which be Cfesar's, and 
unto God the things which be God's." He refused to be a judge o; 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



203 



a divider. He retired from the multitude who would have hurried 
him to a throne. His kingdom, as he declared before the repre- 
sentative of Rome, was not of this world. 

In regard to worldly training, Jesus of Nazareth belonged to 
the unlettered peasantry of a land whose only erudition at best 
was in their religious books. Hence the people exclaimed, How 
knoweth this man letters, having never learned 1 Yet with 
what authority did he speak, and how did thousands of Israel 
hang on the oracles of life ! Never man spake like this man ! 
Undisciplined in any school of philosophy he uttered a wisdom 
which has penetrated all nations and revolutionized the world. 
The striking instances occur to your memory in which amidst the 
craftiest attempts to inveigle him into contradiction, he escaped 
by a divine skill, without perplexity, without hesitation, and with- 
out an effort. This constellation of excellencies, intellectual and 
moral, has justly excited the wonder of all observers. 

But there remains a crowning glory : this virtue was tried by 
suffering. The heathen were accustomed to say that a good man 
struggling with misfortune was a sight worthy of the gods. There 
never were such sufferings as those of Christ; ending in a death 
of ignominy, anguish and desertion, which is the holiest theme of 
our religion, while it is too familiar to your thoughts to need reci- 
tal. It was under the pressure of pain, ingratitude, injury and 
insult, that a train of moral graces came into view, which but for 
this trial would have been unknown, and which have no parallel 
in Gentile ethics. He is seized by night, and hurried from his 
devotions, to be mocked at three several tribunals, arrayed in garb 
of shame, smitten, buffeted, spit upon, calumniated, scourged, and 
hung between robbers and murderers in the most disgraceful death 
then known. In all this series of mortifications and insults he is 
sublimely silent ; never opening his lips in answer to the accu- 
sations, until he utters a claim which seals his condemnation. 
And when his brow is pale in death, his only language concerning 
his murderers is, Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do ! 

But here I awake to the presumption of an attempt to reduce 
the lineaments of such a portrait, and throw aside the pencil in 
despair. If you would have it in its proper colors of Divinity, go 
to the narrative of the Gospels. It is no small argument for the 
excellence of the writings, that all the grandeur of this image is 
conveyed by simple history. These traits reveal themselves in 



204 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



life and action ; without eulogium, without reasoning on the case, 
and without summing up of the principles. 

Of this character, then, I may safely say, produce any parallel. 
If the literature of centuries lias given any equal personification of 
wisdom and goodness, let it be made to appear. Even with this 
model before the eye for ages, what approach has been made to a 
similar, not to say a superior, ideal? 

The character of Jesus Christ satisfies every demand of our 
moral nature. Important as external testimony is in its place 
and for other ends, here is a point where we require no external 
testimony. The moral glory of such a character shines by its 
own self-evidencing light. Here there is an analogy between 
moral conclusions and judgments of taste. Whatever share the 
understanding may have in adjusting and presenting the object, 
the inward faculty judges immediately. Whatever the beautiful 
object may be, a rose, a Parthenon, or a fault-less human counte- 
nance, our inward approbation is immediate. Nor are our moral 
judgments less direct. Here we apply, not bare logic, but the de- 
terminations of intuitive reason, the utterances of our sublimest 
instincts, promptly and unhesitatingly accepting a given character 
as good or evil. It is on these grounds that we yield our love, 
upon the perception of excellence, in all the tenderest relations of 
life. And the decision is all the stronger, quicker, and less fal- 
lible, in proportion to the exquisite harmony and united perfection 
of the object, as light is most undeniable in the effulgence of the 
sun. The Lord Jesus Christ commands our assent, and over- 
whelms us into admiration. Here is the great argument, which 
has carried the citadel of a thousand unlettered hearts, while 
neither they nor we can fully translate it into the terms of cold 
logic. So viewed, the representation of Christ in the New Testa- 
ment is the greatest moral lesson ever given to mankind, infinitely 
surpassing all the ratiocinations of the schools and all the systema- 
tized precepts of ethics ; being virtue reduced to the form of tan- 
gible action, and offered to us with the reality of life. I trust, 
therefore, I may regard the position as maintained, that iu the 
person of Jesus Christ, as presented in the Christian Scriptures, 
we have a perfect model of moral excellence. 

My second proposition is, that this character thus portrayed, is 
not the result of weakness, enthusiasm or imposture. 

Viewed simply as an effort of the human understanding, a 
representation like this is infinitely beyond the reach of imbecility 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



205 



and ignorance. We will boldly claim for high moral achieve- 
ment the greatest intellectual powers. A perfect character is the 
best and choicest product of constructive skill. No architectural 
or mechanic wonder shall ever demand a nobler faculty. The 
depiction of elevated and consistent character has been in every 
age of literature, a favorite but difficult task of genius. But 
when the ideal assumes to be morally perfect, what shall we say 
of the ability required? Who has accomplished it, or even ap- 
proached it ? Look closely at the harmonious and immaculate 
whole, and then at the age, the nation, and the untutored evan- 
gelists, and say, can such an effect spring from the inventions of 
ignorance and folly? The argument, though simple and needing 
little development, is irresistible; that sublime personage was 
never the imagination of feeble minds. 

If it be argued that even genius is sometimes overmastered by 
morbid excitements, I reply, it is inconceivable that this portrait 
should have proceeded from enthusiasm. As if to give the lie to 
such a charge, every page exhibits a simplicity without example 
in other annals. It is fragmentary, and devoid of that rotun- 
dity and glow which belong to the works of heat and fusion. 
The manner of the biography is as surprising as its contents. 
The most odious assaults on the chief personage are related with 
coolness. The most astonishing acts of power and marvels of 
endurance, humility and meekness are related without a syllable 
of praise. There is not a word of panegyric, and scarcely a 
word of comment. The vastness and awfulness of the matter 
stand in contrast with the strongest equanimity and reserve in the 
expression. Whatever else this may prove, it demonstrates thai 
the writers were neither enthusiasts nor fanatics. Had they been 
such, it would have somewhere distorted and exaggerated the 
teaching, somewhere cast a sinister expression or lurid glare on 
the divine countenance, or somewhere blazed forth in language 
of intemperance and fury. If the terms can be used without 
misapprehension, I would say of the gospel history, that it is un- 
rivalled in common sense, well-balanced narrative, and sound 
judgment. As the character represented rises high above all 
mists of vagary, so the representation itself repels the thought 
of enthusiastic excess. 

Seeing then that weakness and enthusiasm are excluded, we 
are shut up (unless we admit the narrative), to the hypothesis 
of imposture. The argument will then run thus : no such events 



206 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



ever occurred ; the character is an ingenious fiction. Yiolent as 
is this supposition, it has had defenders. The difficulty should 
be inextricable from which a reasoner would leap into such an ex- 
planation. The framers of this splendid figment must have been 
either good men, or bad : in neither case could the result have 
taken place. No good man could lend himself to so gigantic a 
falsehood ; for that the narrative was meant to be credited, that 
it lays blood at the doors of a nation, that it involves the dearest 
interests of myriads, and that it was actually believed as true 
from the very date of its appearance, are particulars which no 
sane mind ever doubted. Of all pretensions, the most incredible 
is that the history of Jesus Christ was invented by virtuous men. 

But we find as little relief in ascribing the forgery to bad men: 
forbad men could neither conceive the character, nor alight on a 
motive for depicting it. Bad men could not conceive the char- 
acter. Shall I descend to argue this in detail? Is human 
nature reduced to this, that for the only consummate image of 
virtue we are indebted to the fabrication of impostors ? Could 
the sublime ideal, at which we have taken a distant glance, be 
the offspring of corruption and vice ? The thought transcends 
all powers of credulity, and may be rejected with summary con- 
tempt. 

As undeniabty, bad men would have no motive for such a rep- 
resentation. So costly an invention demands a sufficient reason. 
Yice was never yet its own reprover. Every lineament of this 
celestial countenance would have frowned on the attempt. Every 
light and shade of the picture goes to promote a virtue which 
must be hateful to the false and malignant. The life, the les- 
sons, the death, of Jesus Christ were never given to the world by 
wicked men. We are driven by irresistible stress of conviction 
to the judgment, that those who have left us this narrative were 
simple and honest men, and that they believed what they 
related. 

The more profoundly we examine the case, the fuller must be 
our persuasion, either that the record of facts is true, or that 
Christ himself is the impostor. From the latter alternative of 
the dilemma, every virtuous mind starts back with horror. To 
state it, is to present its confutation. What remains but that 
from difficulties, enigmas and absurdities, so varied and inevitable, 
we return t the solid ground of truth, and admit, as the easiest 



THE CHARACTER CF JESUS CHRIST. 



207 



and only solution, that the events recorded are matter of actual 
history ? 

Having attained to such a conclusion, we find it corroborated 
from another quarter. The character of the Lord Jesus Christ in 
the New Testament presents internal evidence of actuality. It 
is not a vision or a fancy, but a real existence. There are repre- 
sentations in the guise of history which betray themselves to be 
fictitious. There are narratives and characters, of which we say, 
This must have been matter-of-fact. In some of these cases there 
is room for mistake, but in all the evidence is internal, and that 
evidence may rise so high as to remove all doubt. If ever there 
was such a case, it is the one before us. The most powerful 
demonstration that Jesus is a real person, is that which we receive 
when the book is open before us. Nor is this wonderful, when we 
consider that there are laws of sequence and harmony, even in 
the animal creation, which enable the eye of science to decide 
that this is a genuine remnant of a once living structure, though 
in a fossil of ages ; and that a fabulous or factitious aggregation 
of discordant parts. Such sequence and such law there are also 
in moral action and in character. Their very nature, as indicated 
not by parts but by the whole, not by fragment but by harmony, 
not by isolated specimens but by the type of unity, forbid detail 
or example. For ages, impartial readers have rested in the con- 
clusion, This inimitable character actually lived and died on 
earth. 

Before leaving the contemplation of our principal object, let me 
add, that the character of Christ has commanded the respect even 
of enemies. Among many testimonies which might be adduced, 
it will be sufficient to cite that cf the infidel philosopher Rous- 
seau. 

"I will confess to you," says he, "that the majesty of the 
Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel 
has its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philoso- 
phers, with all their pomp of diction: how mean, how contempti- 
ble are they, compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that 
a book, at once so simple and so sublime, should be merely the 
work of a man? Is it possible, that the sacred Personage, whose 
history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find 
that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? 
What sweetness, what purity in his manner! What an affecting 
gracefulness in his delivery ! What sublimity in his maxims ! 



208 



THE CHARACTER CF JESUS CHRIST. 



What profound wisdom in his discourses ! What presence of mind ; 
what subtlety, what truth in his replies ! How great the command 
over his passions ! Where is the man, where the philosopher, 
who could so live and so die, without weakness and without 
ostentation? When Plato describes his imaginary good man, 
loaded with all the punishments of guilt, yet meriting the highest 
rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus 
Christ : the resemblance was so striking that all the fathers per- 
ceived it. What prepossession, what blindness must it be, to 
compare the son of Sophroniscus to the son of Mary ! What an 
infinite disproportion there is between them ! Socrates, dying 
without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to the 
last ; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it 
might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his w r isdom, 
was anything more than a mere sophist. He invented, it is said, 
the theory of morals. Others, however, had before put them into 
practice ; he had only to say, therefore, what they had done, and 
to reduce their examples to precepts. Aristides had been just, be- 
fore Socrates defined justice; Leonidas had given up his life for 
his country, before Socrates declared patriotism to be a duty. 
The Spartans were a sober people before Socrates recommended 
sobriety. Before he had even defined virtue, Greece abounded in 
virtuous men. But where could Jesus learn, among his contem- 
poraries, that pure and sublime morality, of which he only has 
given us both precept and example ? The greatest wisdom was 
made known among the most bigoted fanaticism, and the sim- 
plicity of the most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people on 
earth. The death of Socrates, peacefully philosophizing among 
friends, appears the most agreeable that one could wish : that of 
Jesus, expiring in agonies, abused, insulted, and accused by a 
whole nation, is the most horrible that one could fear. Socrates, 
indeed, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed the weeping execu- 
tioner who administered it ; but Jesus, amidst excruciating tor- 
tures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and 
death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of 
Jesus are those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelical his 
tory a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears no marks of 
fiction. On the contrary, the history of Socrates, which no one 
presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. 
Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without obvi- 
ating it : it is more inconceivable that a number of persons should 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



209 



agree to write such a history, than that one should furnish the 
subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, 
and strangers to the morality contained in the gospel ; the marks 
of whose truth are so striking and inimitable, that the inventor 
would be a more astonishing character than the hero." 

My third proposition is, that consequently, the claims set up by 
Jesus Christ are worthy of our implicit credence. 

It is an inconvenience growing out of the limited field assigned 
to me, that it is continually trenching upon the domain of other 
evidences. The claims of Jesus Christ rest on other proofs, the 
supernatural signatures of his divine legation. But even before 
a witness or a claimant opens his lips or breaks the seal of his 
certificate, we may have an antecedent presumption in his favor. 
We may find it in his reputation, his manner, his very count- 
enance. The claims and assumptions of a great and good man 
differ from all other claims, and are allowed as soon as they are 
stated. This is however the very lowest ground which I will take, 
namely, that the perfection of Christ's character, as appearing in 
the record, affords precedent reason for crediting his testimony. 
From this humble step in the flight of arguments, I proceed to 
assert, that our foregoing conclusions force us to admit the claims 
set up for himself by this extraordinary Person. So sure as perfect 
truth cannot lie, or spotless innocency be malignant, or infinite 
benevolence break forth in ruinous imposture, so surely the de- 
mands of our Lord Jesus are entitled to our implicit credence. But 
here again I necessarily draw near a subject which will be ably 
treated by other hands, and which I dare only touch for an in- 
stant. In all our previous argument, we have viewed the char- 
acter of Jesus in its bare humanity; we have from the law of 
the reasoning abstracted this from all that was supernatural and 
all that was divine. Yet having established the reality and the 
perfectness of Christ's character, we cannot proceed to the claim 
founded on this, without including that mysterious element. Al- 
ways remembering that from these lips, thus endeared to us, 
nothing but infinite truth can drop, let us inquire what are the 
particular claims set up by the Redeemer. These may be men- 
tioned, though they cannot be discussed. Among them are these: 
Jesus Christ claimed to be a perfectly immaculate being ; to be a 
teacher sent from God; to have the authentication of his mission 
in wonders of supernatural power ; to be the subject of prophecies 
uttered during many ages ; to be the Messiah of the old Testa- 

14 



210 



THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



merit ; to be the great atoning sacrifice and only way of access to 
God ; to be endowed with glories far surpassing manhood ; to be 
an object of worship ; to be the incarnate God ! 

We pause in wonder before such claims ; but they are true, 
they are substantiated ; they won the assent of the best men of 
that age and of succeeding ages. The character of Christ gives 
credence to the demands, even prior to the external testimony. 
That however which most concerns my share of the argument, is, 
that in the portrait of character given in the New Testament, 
everything is in perfect harmony. The natural and the super- 
natural, the human and the divine, do not clash. If it were hard 
to depict a perfect moral image, as human, how surpassingly diffi- 
cult to blend this with the superhuman and divine ! The deli- 
cacy, the reserve, the consistent grace, the majesty, with which 
this is done, transcend expectation. Stupendous miracles are re- 
lated with a quietude and simplicity such as enhance their glory. 
Compare with this the ghastly images of pagan gods, and the 
theophanies of the poets, and you at once apprehend the force of 
the argument. All that it concerns me here to show, is, that the 
personality of Christ, as portrayed by the Evangelists, has every- 
thing to make it credible, even in respect to its celestial side. 

These claims of the Lord Jesus Christ have fought their suc- 
cessful way through every system of opinion, and commanded the 
grateful belief of multitudes. Other arguments may admit of 
being presented with more dialectic exactness, in mood and figure, 
but it is my sincere persuasion, that no argument goes so pro- 
foundly to the heart, or so irrefragably reasons down the preju- 
dices of skepticism, as the person of Jesus as it shines out from 
the evangelical pages. Talk as we may, about the difficulties 
of this subject, the divine reasonableness of the truth here em- 
bodied and personified has carried away captive the minds of suc- 
cessive generations, and is going on conquering and to conquer. 
Among thousands of thousands of true Christians, every one has 
been smitten with this ideal, and has in his measure striven to 
reproduce it. Every one has not merely accepted the precepts 
of Christ, but imitated the person of Christ: and the Christianity 
which is in the world, is after certain reflections and refractions, 
that same light, mirrored forth with manifold variety, according 
to the subjective differences of various minds ; even as the morn- 
ing sun comes to us in the hues of the mountain, the dancing 
waves of the sea the flowers of the field, and innumerable drops 



TIIE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 



211 



of dew, each vying with the rest to show forth some beam of the great 
luminary. Such credence have these claims received, that it is 
the character of Christ which lives again, in each individual be- 
liever, and in the body of the Church. Did time permit, I might 
go further and show, that the civizilation of the modern world is 
a modified effluence from the same centre. The humanity of 
Christian nations — what is it, but a poor copy of the benignity of 
Christ? The tendencies to universal amity among nations — 
what is it but the gradual imitation of the Prince of Peace? The 
hospitals, infirmaries, and asylums of our day, for the helpless, 
blind, deaf, lunatic, — what are they, but the life of Christ, to some 
humble degree, actuating the life of society? And when the pro- 
cess shall be complete ; when the last recusant shall give in his 
allegiance ; when all nations shall be connected, and the church 
and the world have the same boundaries ; what shall it be, but 
the Body of Christ, in which every member shall derive strength 
and character from the Head !* 

* It was at first intended to refer in the margin to the passages of Scripture, on 
which the allegations of the foregoing discourse are founded : but their number was 
found to be so great, that citation of chapter and verse would probably defeat the 
object in view 



AN EVIDENCE OF ITS DIVINE OKIGIN 



WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE CELEBRATED 
SECONDARY CAUSES" OF MR. GIBBON. 



MOSES D. HOGE, 

RICHMOND, TA. 




A.S.Bitchije. s c 




I. 

More than 1800 years ago, amidst the shadows of the night, 
and the gloom of a narrow defile near the city of Jerusalem, there 
might have been seen the dim outline of a human form, prostrate 
upon the ground, uttering plaintive cries, and exhibiting evidences 
of the most overwhelming sorrow. 

Presently lights were seen glancing through the foliage, and 
the heavy tramp of a company of men was heard. A band of 
soldiers, and others, bearing lanterns and torches and weapons, 
advanced, and took into custody the mysterious mourner. A lit- 
tle company of friends witnessed the capture, but they had neither 
the strength nor the courage to attempt a rescue, and seeing him 
in the keeping of the soldiers, they all forsook him and fled. 

The next day a tumultuous crowd darkened the summit of a 
hill, on which three crosses had been erected. On one of these 
crosses, the captive of the preceding night was hanging in the 
agonies of death. But strango prodigies attended that crucifixion. 
All Nature gave signs of unwonted agitation. The earth, as if 
instinct with life, shuddered as the crimson drops trickled upon it. 
It became pervaded by an emotion which seemed to pierce its 
heart and thrill through its entire frame. Upon its quaking sur- 
face the forms of the shrouded dead were revealed to the eyes of 
the terror-stricken living, while over the opening tombs, the rend- 
ing rocks, and the parting veil of the Temple, the sun wrapped 
himself in darkness, and thus pursued his journey. 

Nor was the sympathy of nature wholly inarticulate. It found 
an interpreter in the Centurion, who, convinced by these prodigies 
of the Divinity of the sufferer, exclaimed, " Truly this was the Son 
of God." But strange as it may appear, while this heathen sol- 
dier is bearing such noble testimony to the character of the cruci- 
fied Jesus, his own followers abandon all confidence in him. They 
did hope that he would prove the long-expected Deliverer — the 
light of Israel, and the salvation of the ends of the earth ; but, 
now they believed themselves to have been cruelly deceived. It 



216 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



was a bitter disappointment, but there was no help for it. Their 
fondly cherished hopes must be buried in the tomb in which they 
believed him to be sealed, the prisoner of death, until the final 
Judgment. 

But soon after, a surprising change took place in the feelings 
and in the conduct of these timid, disheartened men. Having 
been scattered, they suddenly rally again, their hopes revive, 
their confidence is reanimated. They are no longer wavering or 
fearful; on the contrary / they are decided and courageous. No 
argument can shake their faith — no terrors can daunt their reso- 
lution. Decision — intrepidity — the loftiest heroism characterize 
the men who a little while ago were appalled at the death of their 
Leader, and who trembled lest there should be any suspicion of 
their connection with him. They themselves furnish the explana- 
tion of this sudden and otherwise inexplicable change in their 
views and feelings. They assert that their crucified Lord is alive. 
Everywhere, at all times, in the face of all dangers, they persist in 
the declaration that they have seen him, conversed with him, and 
possess the most undeniable proofs that he has risen from the 
dead. So firmly has this conviction possessed them — so wonder- 
fully does it animate them, that they prepare to traverse their 
own, and even foreign lands, for the sole purpose of proclaiming 
salvation through the crucified and risen Jesus. 

Whether its earliest heralds were mistaken, or correct in their 
belief of the resurrection of Christ, is not now a point under dis- 
cussion. The fact that such w^as their avowed conviction is all 
that concerns us at present. That they did maintain this doctrine 
— that they made it the basis of their creed — the theme of their 
proclamation, is equally admitted by the Christian and the Infidel. 
Now of the result of these labors w T e have two accounts — the one 
furnished by the friends of Christianity, the other by its foes. 
Both of these concur in two important particulars. They agree 
in their representations of the wonderfully rapid diffusion of the 
new faith, and of the feeble and inconsiderable instruments em- 
ployed in its propagation. 

We learn from the writers of the New Testament that the first 
triumphs of Christianity commenced in Jerusalem — the very city 
which had clamored for the crucifixion of Christ. A few days 
after his departure from the world there was an assemblage of 
disciples amounting to one hundred and twenty in number. In 
a little more than a week after, three thousand were converted in 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



217 



Jerusalem under one sermon of the Apostles. This number was 
in a very short time increased to five thousand. Nor were the 
labors of the Apostles confined to Jerusalem. They traversed 
ihc whole land of Judea with wonderful success in gaining 
numerous disciples. Even a great company of Priests became 
obedient to the faith. Not to dwell upon particulars, it is suffi- 
cient to remark, that before the author of the Acts of the Apostles 
ieaches the 23d chapter of his brief history of the infant church, 
he asserts that thousands (uvgtudog, myriads) of the Jews were 
zealous believers. And before he concludes his narrative, he in- 
forms us that the religion of the cross had penetrated Italy and 
Asia Minor, and had commenced its aggressions even upon the con- 
tinent of Africa. In less than ten years from the time when Paul 
went forth on his missionary tour from Antioch, it was said of him 
and his companions that they had "turned the world upside clown." 

The Christian Fathers enlarge upon the triumphs of the cross, 
and dwell with exultation upon the splendid progress of the 
Gospel from land to land, and from continent to continent. Justin 
Martyr, who flourished in the beginning of the 2d century, as- 
serted that there was not a nation, either Greek or barbarian, or 
of any other name, even of those who wandered in tribes, or lived 
in tents, among whom prayers and thanksgivings w T ere not offered 
to the Father and Creator of the universe, through the name of 
the crucified Jesus. Tertullian, w 7 ho lived about half a centur) 
later, exclaims, " In whom else have all nations believed, but in 
Christ who lately came ?" 

In his appeal to the Roman governors, he indulges in this ex- 
ulting language, "We are but of yesterday, and we have filled 
all places belonging to you, your cities, islands, castles, towns, 
councils, the palace, senate and forum, we have left you only 
your temples." And he adds, that should the Christians with- 
draw in a body from the Empire, the world would be amazed at 
the solitude and desolation that would ensue. 

Such is the testimony of the friends of Christianity — let us see 
how far these assertions are sustained by its foes. 

About thirty years after the Crucifixion, Rome became the the- 
atre of an imperial villany, which has scarcely a parallel in his- 
tory. The emperor Nero became the incendiary of his own capi- 
tal. To escape the odium of such an atrocity, he accused the 
Christians of having set fire to the city, and visited them with the 
most inhuman cruelties. Tacitus declares that those who bore 



218 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the vulgar appellation of Christians, derived their name and origin 
from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by 
the sentence of Pilate : that for a while the dire superstition was 
checked, but it again burst forth, and not only spread itself over 
Judea, but was even introduced into Rome. Now no writer is 
more carefully guarded in his statements than Tacitus — none 
more sedulously free from exaggeration, and therefore we know it 
is no hyperbole in which he indulges, when he speaks of the 
" bursting forth" of the "superstition" as he would of the leaping 
flame of a conflagration, or the headlong rush of a torrent. — Nor 
would he characterize an inconsiderable number as a " vast mul- 
titude" within the very walls of the capital of the world. His 
account of the sudden revival, and triumphant progress of the 
Gospel, reminds us of the New Testament narrative of the 
descent of the Holy Ghost, and the simultaneous conversion of 
the thousands of Jerusalem. 

The elegant Pliny, governor of the remote provinces of Pontus 
and Bithynia, bordering upon the Euxine, found these distant 
regions so filled with Christians, that he addressed a letter to the 
Emperor Trajan, asking advice as to the proper mode of treating 
them. He complains that the number of the culprits was so 
great as to call for serious consultation ; he declares that their 
superstition, as he characterizes it, had seized not only upon the 
cities, but upon the lesser towns, and open country ; that the 
pagan temples had been almost deserted, the sacred solemnities 
suspended, and that scarcely any purchasers could be found for 
the sacrificial victims. Nothing asserted in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles more vividly illustrates the triumphant conquests of Chris- 
tianity than do these statements of the pagan Pliny. 

But it is needless to extend this testimony, either of the advo- 
cates or opponents of Christianity, with regard to its vast and 
unparalleled conquests in the primitive ages. It was of rapid 
growth. It was not slowly evolved from a germ like the Mythol- 
ogy of the ancients, originating in the dim antiquity of some 
remote and obscure tribe, to be developed and perfected by the 
accretions of long centuries, — but it sprang into being, and into 
vigorous maturity, before its enemies had any reason to apprehend 
its power or the impossibility of its overthrow. Or, to change the 
figure, it was not like the coral island insensibly emerging during 
the progress of ages from unknown depths of the ocean, imper- 
ceptibly rising above the surface, and expanding into a continent, 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



219 



but was rather like the sudden vision of some newly-formed orb, 
springing fresh and glowing from its Maker's hand, and hung up 
in its symmetry and beauty to shine as a light forever in the fir- 
mament of Heaven. Certainly and delightfully true is it that 
Christianity, with its celestial radiance, darted, as the beams 
of the morning sun from city to city, and from continent to conti- 
nent, until kindreds, people, tongues, and nations, were blessed 
by the light, and warmed by the heat into a new and diviner life. 

All the testimony which we have on the subject, from whatever 
source it comes, unites in illustrating the swiftly advancing and 
victorious march of Christianity to universal dominion. Its 
progress was signalized by the abolition of the corrupt and cruel 
institutions of heathenism, and by the establishment of order, 
harmony, and prosperity, in the place of misrule, dissension, and 
wretchedness. The bloody altars of superstition were overthrown. 
The temples of pagan deities were abandoned to solitude and 
decay. The most hallowed shrines grew mute — or as if smitten 
with sudden fear, uttered half-audible responses. Solemnly does 
the choral verse of Milton celebrate these desolations : — 

"The oracles are dumb, 
No voice or hideous hum 

Runs thro' the arched roof in words deceiving; 
Apollo from his shrine 
Can no more divine, 

"With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. 
No nightly trance, or breathed spell 
Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell. 

Peor and Baalim 

Forsake their temples dim, 

With that twice-battered God of Palestine; 
And mooned Ashtaroth 
Heav'n's queen and Mother both, 

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine. 
* * * # 

And sullen Moloch fled 
Hath left in shadow dread 

His burning idol of all blackest hue ; 
In vain with cymbals' ring 
May call their grisly king 

In dismal dance about the furnace blue. 

* * * * 

Nor is Osiris seen 

In Memphian grove or green." 

* * * # 



220 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Thus was the advance of Christianity from zone to zone attested 
by the overthrow of idol gods and temples. And equally trium- 
phant was it in conflict with every opposing force. At first ignored, 
then despised, then trampled upon by the civil power — it com- 
manded respect — then inspired fear — then displayed its majestic 
might, and became terrible as an army with banners. It stretched 
forth its resistless hand, and took to itself the power. It enrobed 
itself in the imperial purple. The banner of the Cross floated 
from the dome of the world's capitol, and the triumphant Church 
placed upon her brow the diadem of the Ceesars. The last page 
of Eusebius glowingly depicts the blessedness of the reign of 
Constantine, under whom had been extended the dominion not of 
pagan but of Christian Rome from the rising sun to the last bor- 
ders of declining day, while his exulting subjects in chants, and 
hymns, extolled God the universal King, and gave him glory for 
the victories of his church. 

But when we have asserted and illustrated the simple fact that 
Christianity did thus rapidly attain to universal diffusion, we have 
only entered upon the threshold of the subject. If we wonder at 
the celerity of its propagation, much more will our wonder be ex- 
cited when we come to contemplate the numerous and formidable 
obstacles which opposed its progress — when we consider how every 
earthly influence combined to prevent its extension, how all the 
prejudices and powers of the world conspired for its annihilation, 
while there were no visible agencies at all adequate to the produc- 
tion of a result so stupendous, as its advancement from victory to 
victory, until it achieved the conquest of the world. 

There is indeed one satisfactory method of accounting for the 
success of Christianity, viz. : by ascribing it to that power which 
built the w T orlds. But setting aside for the present this 'single 
method of explaining its triumphs, its success becomes the most 
inexplicable of all wonders. 

Christianity is now an existing fact. We can review its his- 
tory — we can trace its entire career from its origin, through all its 
struggles and victories, down to the present hour. But were our 
Stand point the beginning of the 1st century, instead of the mid- 
dle of the 19th century of the Christian era, and were we from 
that point of observation required to estimate the probabilities, of 
its success, by all the modes of reasoning known to man, we 
would be forced to the conclusion that it never could prevail. 
Our verdict would be that its success would be contrary to all the 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



221 



laws of mind, to all the experience of the past, to all the relations 
of cause and effect. There was a time when this was the verdict 
of all who had heard of the pretensions of Christianity, with the 
exception of a dozen obscure and illiterate individuals in the land 
of Judea. Even had Christianity commenced its career by adapt- 
ing itself to the natural passions of the human heart — had it 
sought to allure men by the proffer of earthly power, wealth and 
pleasure — had it imposed no restraints and required no sacri- 
fices — had it been advocated by philosophers and orators — had 
genius, art, and fashion lent it their fascinations — had rank and 
power afforded it their countenance and support, even then, in 
a world composed of nations and races so dissimilar in intelligence, 
tastes, interests, and habits, we could hardly have anticipated its 
universal prevalence — for when have all mankind agreed in any 
opinion, or become simultaneously subject to the same influence? 
Said Celsus, one of the early fathers of skepticism, "A man must 
be veiy weak to suppose that Greeks and barbarians can ever 
unite under the same system of religion !" But we proceed to 
show that Christianity, so far from possessing such natural attrac- 
tions and adventitious aids as have been alluded to, commenced 
its career with pretensions, with demands, with advocates, with 
prospects, all calculated to excite scorn and opposition — calculated 
to bring it into direct and fierce collision with all established 
opinions and venerable institutions — with all the philosophy of 
the learned, with all the creeds of the superstitious, with all the 
jealousy of governments, with all the enmity of the natural 
heart, while the agencies employed for its extension were, to 
human appearance, not only feeble, but repulsive, and despicable. 

The very birth-place of Christianity was inauspicious. The 
Jewish nation was the most unpopular branch of the human 
family. Their land was the Bceotia of the world. It was re- 
garded as the native home of fanaticism, bigotry, and detestable 
superstition. We may learn from Tacitus in what estimation 
the Jewish people were regarded by their neighbors. He stig- 
matizes them as a race excessively depraved, prone to lust, and 
accounting no abomination as unlawful. He declares, that what 
others deem sacred, they reckon profane, and what others abhor, 
they freely tolerate. Now, a religion emanating from a people 
regarded with such aversion by the rest of mankind, would be 
prejudged and condemned without an investigation. 

But how could Christianity originate among the Jews them- 



222 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



selves? It is true that about the time of the birth of Christ there 
was among them a very general expectation of the advent of 
some extraordinary personage, whom their Prophets had denomi- 
nated Messiah. In glowing terms they had described him as a 
mighty conqueror who should deliver his people from foreign 
domination, impart new splendors to the throne of David, and 
extend over the world the sceptre of universal empire. Hence 
the Jews, from whom civil independence was now departing, 
eagerly seized upon such declarations, and giving to them a 
literal interpretation, revelled in the anticipation of the national 
supremacy and glory to which their deliverer would exalt them. 
And although their Prophets had also spoken of the humiliations 
and woes of their Messiah, they would have readily forgiven him 
any failure in fulfilling these predictions, had he but possessed the 
power to elevate them to that temporal aggrandizement which 
they coveted. 

But when they saw him enter their capital without pomp or 
pageantry, surrounded by publicans and fishermen, instead of a 
splendid retinue of courtiers, followed by the poor, the blind, and 
the halt — how great was their disappointment and chagrin — how 
bitter their derision of his kingly pretensions ! Nazareth was 
his reputed home, and Galileans his chosen associates — but 
Nazareth and Galilean were names of reproach even in Jeru- 
salem. A Nazarene our Messiah ! A Galilean our King ! No, 
exclaimed they, this is not he ; when Christ cometh no man 
knoweth whence he is. Is not this the carpentefs son ? And 
above all, when they saw him unresisting and deserted — spat 
upon, and derided — and then led away to ignominious crucifixion, 
they regarded this as a fit termination for so miserable an impos- 
ture. "Away with him !" " Crucify him." " Let his memory 
perish !" And yet — astonishing to relate, and strangely true — 
multitudes of those who had joined in this cry, and who had 
witnessed his death on the cross, in a few days after, under the 
preaching of Peter, an obscure Galilean fisherman, were cut to 
the heart, and openly — exultingly- -professed faith in the cruci- 
fied Jesus, and became his devoted disciples ! 

How is this mighty revulsion of feeling, this total change of 
life, to be accounted for? How came it that the deep-rooted 
prejudices of thousands were annihilated in a twinkling, or ex- 
changed for admiration and love stronger than death ? 

These very men had doubtless witnessed many of the wonder- 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



223 



ful works of Christ — they had been spectators of his affecting 
death — they had seen the heaving of the rocks, and felt the 
quaking of the earth, and had been shrouded in the preternatural 
darkness : and was the preaching of the darkened heavens, and 
of the bursting tombs, and of the trembling earth, and of the 
Saviours dying groans, less eloquent than the preaching of 
Galilean Peter? Surely not. How, why then, were the Jews 
now convinced ? What overpowering spell so suddenly conquered 
their wilful prejudice, their determined unbelief? Surely here is 
mystery wholly inexplicable by all natural causes. Was it a 
mere human power, which thus conquered them? Then it was 
a human power also, which cleaved the rocks, and shook the 
earth, and clothed the sun with darkness. 

Such was the first triumph of Christianity. But the heralds 
of the Cross do not confine their labors to Palestine. They visit 
pagan lands. They proclaim the resurrection of Christ, and the 
doctrine of salvation through him alone, to the most barbarous, 
and to the most enlightened nations of the Gentile world. They 
seem to make no distinction between savage and civilized people. 
They evince no preference for any particular field of labor, but 
visit with equal readiness the most refined and polished cities, 
and the most benighted and barbarous provinces. They are as 
confident and courageous in the proudest capital as in the ob- 
scurest hamlet. The early champions of the Cross did not hover 
about the outskirts of civilization, like Cossacks around the 
camps of disciplined armies, only to make sudden and irregular 
assaults — and then to flee to the wilds of the desert ! It would 
indeed have been a suspicious circumstance, if Christianity had 
evinced a preference for the haunts of ignorant and savage tribes, 
and had it selected these, as the theatre of its first aggressions. 
Untutored and unreflecting men might easily have been made 
the dupes of an imposture, however base and impudent. But on 
the contrary — in the words of a venerable divine — " In this re- 
spect Christianity stands upon high vantage ground. Its Author 
first announced himself to an age celebrated in story and im- 
mortalized in song. His Apostles travelled over classic ground. 
They established churches in the land of Euclid, of Aristotle 
and Longinus; of Demosthenes, Solon, and Lycurgus : of Homel- 
and Pindar, Atticus and Cicero, Sallust and Livy, Horace, Ovid, 
and Virgil." It was the Augustan age — an age distinguished fol- 
ks constellation of x>ets, orators, and statesmen — an age eminent 



224 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



among all others for its inquisitive researches, its ingenious dis- 
putations, its vast and varied erudition, its bold speculations, and 
unfettered freedom of opinion. Not only were Ephesus and 
Antiocb, and other renowned cities of Asia, honored by apostolic 
labors, but another city — more renowned than all — a city where 
the merchant found his exchange, the student his university, the 
artist his studio — the pleasure-loving his paradise, and the wit his 
admiring audience — the classic capital of the most classic land — 
there, too, the Apostle proclaimed his message, in the hearing of 
the volatile, ingenious Athenians (those true Parisia7is of an- 
tiquity) — and proclaimed it too with just as much confidence and 
expectation of success, as if, instead of the Areopagus, he had stood 
in the cottage of some Galilean fisherman ! Nor did his labors ter- 
minate until his desire to see Rome also, was gratified, — until 
Caesar's household heard from his lips the story of the Cross. 

But what popular doctrines do the Apostles proclaim, as they 
journey from city to city, and from province to province, captivat- 
ing and entrancing one quarter of the globe after another? How 
contrary to all that we might anticipate is the answer ! Doctrines 
most unpalatable and offensive. The great burden of their proc- 
lamation is salvation through the merits of a crucified Jew ! 

We have already adverted to the estimation in which the Ro- 
mans held the Hebrew race. And if such was their contempt 
and aversion toward that whole people — now that they were in 
the very act of wresting the sceptre from Judah, how could they 
be induced to acknowledge a plebeian of that nation, as a king, 
— a plebeian despised and rejected by the vast majority of his 
own countrymen? 

Had Jesus been still living — had he advanced toward the capi- 
tal, as an ambitious warrior at the head of a brave army — Ro- 
mans might have respected him as a gallant foe ; still the temple 
of Janus would have been thrown open, and mail-clad legions 
w T ou!d have marched to meet the invader. But if no greater honor 
than this could have been shown him, how could the Romans, ig- 
norant of prophecy and of the spiritual nature of his kingdom, 
receive him as a King and Saviour? Would they not despise 
him and deride his pretensions, even more than his own country- 
men did previous to the day of Pentecost ? 

Accustomed as we have ever been to associate the Cross with 
all that is sacred and venerable, we can have no conception of the 
disgust which would arise in the Roman mind, at the proposal tc 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



225 



elevate a crucified man to the rank of a Divine Saviour — and 
withal a crucified Jew — a Jew who was born in a stable. What 
witticisms, what jeers, what scoflfs would overwhelm the advo- 
cates of such a Divinity. No wonder that a Roman governor 
should have charged one of them with being "mad." Should 
some one in this land assert the Godhead of an Indian who had 
been hanged upon a gallows, he would not more offend the moral 
sense of the community, than did this doctrine of the Apostles, 
the proud and polished people to whom it was addressed. 

But what doctrines did the Apostles proclaim which were not 
opposed to the sentiments of the natural heart ? It is no compli- 
ment to a man to tell him that he is totally depraved, utterly 
helpless, and justly condemned. It is an impolitic way to at- 
tempt to gain adherents to a cause by demanding of them heavy 
sacrifices, and pakiful self-denials. And no system of human in- 
vention, seeking the suffrages and applauses of the world, would 
have demanded as lis first requirement, self-crucifixion, and a re- 
nunciation of all that is most dear to the natural heart. Yet such 
were the exactions of Christianity. It was never offered to men 
as a speculative creed, intended merely to occupy the intellect, — 
but it was urged as a rule of action, to control the outer and inner 
life of man — to regulate not only external conduct, but to prescribe 
imperative laws for the government of the thoughts, desires, and 
affections — condemning ambition, avarice, envy, intrigue, carnal 
ease, sensual indulgence, — and enjoining meekness, temperance, 
forgiveness, love to God, love to man, love to enemies, purity of 
life, holiness of heart. 

Almost every precept of Christianity imposes a restraint, or de- 
mands the mortification of some passion or inclination of the 
heart. 

By nature, man is proud and self-sufficient — Christianity de- 
clares him to be weak and dependent, and incapable of self-guid- 
ance. Though man is naturally obstinate and self-willed, Chris- 
tianity demands the subjection of every faculty and power to the 
law of another. Though man is naturally selfish and intent on 
the gratification of his own wishes, regardless of the happiness 
of others, Christianity enjoins a philanthropy which is wholly 
disinterested, it demands a sacrifice of personal ease and interest 
for the promotion of the good of others, and ordains a charity 
which shall embrace in its arms the whole family of man. 
Though man is by nature prone to retaliation under a sense of 



226 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



wrong — though for the moment revenge is sweet when it ia 
glutted by the destruction of its victim, yet even when the bosom 
is swelling with rage — when furious passions lash the soul into a 
tempest, and drown the voice of reason — even then, the clear ce- 
lestial tones of the gospel are heard, rising above the din of 
passion, saying, "Peace, be still." "Dearly beloved, avenge not 
yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath." "If thine enemy 
hunger, feed him, if he thirst, give him drink !" 

When Homer gave to the world his portraiture of the most re- 
nowned hero of antiquity — the prominent traits of whose charac- 
ter the great Latin bard has summed up in one nervous line, 

" Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer," 

— epithets which might furnish names for four devils — he did not 
offend the moral sense of his countrymen by such a delineation ; 
neither was Greek nor Roman admiration of the character of 
this warrior diminished, even when he is represented as dragging 
the dead body of his gallant rival — bound to his chariot wheels- 
three times around the walls of Troy, and that too in the sight of 
his aged father. 

How foreign to all the genius and spirit of the age which wit- 
nessed its triumphs, were the teachings of the Gospel. Plain un- 
lettered men, without wealth, or rank, or influence (and with one 
or two exceptions), without address, or eloquence, went abroad 
proclaiming doctrines most novel, startling, unpalatable. "A 
crucified Christ was all their rhetoric," and yet no doctrines ever 
promulgated, before or since that day, met with such universal 
favor — no teachings ever so penetrated and transformed human 
hearts, none ever gained a popularity so world-wide. But did 
Christianity obtain its unlimited supremacy over the hearts of 
men, did it triumph over principalities, did it ascend a throne, and 
issue its undisputed edicts to the subjugated nations — by forbid- 
ding all that corrupt humanity craved, by enjoining all that cor- 
rupt humanity was averse to — by waging war of extermination 
upon every depraved, and therefore cherished, passion, prejudice 
and propensity ? Leaving out of view the intervention of divine 
power, here is an enigma to be solved by some more gifted in- 
tellect than the world has yet been favored with. 

Another obstacle to the progress of Christianity, was its uncom- 
promising exclusiveness. It refused to come under the patronage 
of any other religion. It refused to take any other religion under 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



227 



its patronage. It would not even enter into a friendly alliance. 
It would not even make a treaty of peace. It proclaimed eternal 
warfare upon every other faith. Its Janus was never to be closed 
while an enemy survived. It demanded the overthrow of every 
altar and temple of Paganism. Its aim was a total abrogation ot 
all the religious systems of the world. It demanded the utter an- 
nihilation of institutions which the revolution of ages had rendered 
venerable and sacred in the memories of men. Claiming to be 
the only true religion, it would not receive the false into its em- 
brace. To every proposed affiliation, its genius replied, — what 
communion hath light with darkness — what concord hath Christ 
with Belial? It declared to Paganism that its priests were jug- 
glers, and its gods a lie. It declared to Judaism, that its mission 
had ended — that its glory had departed — that it was now only 
the worthless scaffold around some completed palace, and as such, 
fit only to be thrown down. It declared to the sage, that his pro- 
foundest speculations were vain janglings. It ranked the Epicu- 
rean with the beasts, and the Stoic with the stones of the field. 
It estimated the wisdom of the Scribe as lighter than vanity. It 
denounced the sleek and sanctimonious Pharisee as a disguised 
hypocrite, and rent in fragments the reverend garments whose 
hem men had stooped to kiss, and exhibited the wearer to the 
world, as a naked child of the Devil. 

Such was the attitude which Christianity assumed toward the 
time-hallowed systems of the world. Such was the attitude of a 
novel religion — one which sprung from a subjugated people— 
whose founder was a carpenter, and whose greatest apostle was 
a tentmaker. 

Far easier is it to change the kings than the gods — the gov- 
ernment than the religion of any nation. Did exclusive, uncom- 
promising, all-assuming Christianity adopt the right policy for 
effecting such a change? 

Nor are we to suppose that Polytheism had a slight hold upon 
the affections and prejudices of men. It con mended itself to the 
favor of the sensual by the indulgence it permitted. The fires 
of unhallowed lust were kindled upon the very altars of Pagan- 
ism. It commended itself to the imagination of the refined, by 
the beauty of its mythology. It placed genial household gods 
beneath every roof. It animated all nature with propitious 
deities. It gave Naiads to every fountain, and Dryads to every 
grove. Aurora rode upon the beams of the mornir.g, and Iris 



228 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



clothed herself in the melting hues of the rainbow. Old ocean 
obeyed its trident-bearing God — the voices of spirits were heard 
along its flashing waves, and sportive Nereids gambolled upon its 
yellow sands. 

It commended itself to the taste of the common people by its 
gorgeously attired priests, its showy temples, its jocund festivals, 
its stately processions, and brilliant ritual services, rendered more 
attractive by all the charms derived from an alliance with music, 
painting, and sculpture. How seemingly hopeless the aggres- 
sions of Christianity, without imposing rites, without altars, with- 
out sacrifices, or visible gods — and utterly devoid of all external 
attractions. 

How can a yeligion of faith — a purely spiritual religion, over- 
turn systems venerable for antiquity — deeply entrenched in preju- 
dices of men — endeared by association — upheld by the homage 
and personal devotion of statesmen and warriors, who felt hon- 
ored in exchanging the gown and the armor for the sacerdotal 
vestments, that they might personally assist in the sacred cere- 
monies? How shall a superstition commending itself to the 
bosoms and business of men — pervading all the ramifications of 
social life — interwoven with all the departments of government — 
under whose auspices Greece had attained her highest heaven 
of classic renown, under whose favoring smiles Rome had 
achieved the conquest of the world — how shall a system thus 
founded, and thus supported, be supplanted by an upstart faith 
which does not offer one attraction to worldly pride, pleasure, or 
glory, but which on the contrary, summons its votaries to a life 
of mortification and self-denial — to obloquy, and the ruin of all 
earthly prospects, — whose open confession is, u If i n this life only 
we have hope, toe are of all men most miserable /" With pros- 
pects like these, what earthly possibility is there of its triumph 
over the firmly established and fondly cherished institutions of 
Polytheism? Experience answers — reason, common sense an- 
swers, it cannot prevail — it must perish : — nevertheless it did 
prevail — it did triumph. It scattered Polytheism to the winds — 
it sent its idols to the moles and the bats — it laid its proudest temples 
in the dust, and on the ruins of the fallen fabric, it planted the 
immovable foundations, and reared the eternal pillars of the 
Christian Church. Is this august structure the work of human 
hands? A stone-mason can build a wall — but does it therefore 
follow that he can build a world ? 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



229 



We have now considered the obstacles to the success of Chris- 
tianity arising- from its innate offensiveness to human taste, preju- 
dice, and reason, its failure to meet the exalted expectations of 
the Jews, the absurdity of its doctrines in the estimation of en- 
lightened Pagans, the startling novelty of its precepts, its want 
of temporal rewards for its votaries, its unattractive spirituality, 
its destitution of all such sensuous charms as would captivate 
the vulgar, its uncompromising exclusiveness, and determined 
hostility to every other religion, and now it only remains to con- 
template its triumph over one other obstacle, viz. over the active 
external opposition which it encountered on all sides — the des- 
perate efforts of its enemies for its overthrow by means of slan- 
derous tongues, and slanderous pens, and the dreadful sword of 
persecution. 

The success of Christianity under persecution is a strange, 
and deeply interesting phenomenon. It would be impossible to 
specify all the forms of assault to which its enemies resorted. 
Wherever Christianity appeared, it excited the rage of various 
classes and orders of men, who opposed it from widely different 
motives. 

Professing to be a universal religion, its proclamations must 
needs go throughout all the earth, and be heard in the ends of 
the world. Its voice must mingle with the soft murmur of the 
Mediterranean waves, and with the hoarse tempests which 
thunder along the bleak shores of the frozen sea. It must come 
in contact with every phase of human character, as varied by 
different climates, degrees of civilization, and forms of govern- 
ment, and hence it must excite an opposition as diversified as the 
abodes, customs, and interests of mankind. But for the present, 
leaving this extended field of observation, and confining our at- 
tention to the fortunes of Christianity in the Roman Empire 
alone, we can readily anticipate what a host of foes its aggres- 
sions would stir up among that people. Polytheism was the 
munificent patron both of the fine and mechanic arts. It gave 
employment to the painter, to the poet, and to the humblest 
artisan. It gave honor and emolument to the vast retinue of 
priests and officials in the service of the gods of every shrine and 
temple. It gave entertainment to the countless multitude in 
whose minds alternate emotions of awe, pleasure, and exultation, 
were enkindled by public games, processions, and festivals. 

An innumerable sacerdotal throng of Pontifices, Augurs, Vestals, 



230 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



and Flamens, derived their support from the revenues of the tern 
pies, and from the public treasury. But should the doctrines of 
Christianity prevail, who would believe their venerable lies ? Who 
would make them donation visits? Whence could they obtain 
bread, the impostures of their craft once exploded? It is not 
agreeable either to a mercenary politician, or priest, to lose office. 
As a matter of course, all the satellites, and retainers, and depend- 
ants of Paganism would rouse all their energies to resist the in- 
roads of the gospel, which took away at once their credit and their 
means of subsistence. The common people would be enraged at 
the loss of their favorite entertainments. The philosophers would 
gnash their teeth against a system which closed their schools, 
and rendered their teachings contemptible. The higher classes 
of society, men of rank and influence, senators and soldiers, men 
who derived new distinction by officiating at the ceremonials of 
religion, would indignantly frown upon a faith which mocked at 
their divinities and solemn mysteries. Kings and magistrates 
would regard with mingled fear and detestation such an overturn- 
ing of the religion which was incorporated with the state, which 
was sustained by proscription and prejudice, which was so inter- 
woven with the civil and military institutions of the country, that 
no warlike expedition could be ordered, and not even a seat taken 
in the senate, without accompanying religious ceremonies. Hence 
Christianity was regarded as treason against the state. 

We cannot wonder, therefore, at the variety or the virulence of 
the assaults made upon so restless an agitator. The foulest slan- 
ders were verbally circulated, accusing Christians of dark, impure, 
and bloody rites. The acutest and most brilliant writers employed 
all their learning and cunning to bring Christianity into contempt. 
Among others, Celsus, Porphyry, Symmachus, and the Emperor 
Julian, wrote treatises, fragments of which have come down to us, 
from which we learn, that although they did not deny the mira- 
cles of the gospel record, yet they assailed Christianity with a 
malignity which rivalled the ingenuity of Spinosa, the wit of 
Voltaire, and the ribaldry of Paine. 

But the final appeal of terrified and tottering Paganism was to 
the power of the government. The Roman monarchy, the great- 
est and strongest upon earth, directed all its might toward the 
overthrow, and if possible the extinction of the Christian Church. 

A certain class of writers have indeed endeavored to create the 
Impression that the Roman government was wonderfully liberal 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



231 



and tolerant toward the religions of other nations. But a closer 
examination into the hest authorities on the subject will lead us 
to a very different conclusion. It is true that some of the empe- 
rors were disposed to be lenient and indulgent. There were in- 
tervals during which the Church enjoyed seasons of comparative 
tranquillity. It is also admitted that individuals were permitted 
to express their sentiments with a great degree of freedom. For 
example, upon the stage, and in the writings of the satiric poets, 
the keenest ridicule was directed toward the thieves, murderers, 
and adulterers, facetiously styled the "Immortal Gods," and 
winked at, perhaps enjoyed by the magistrates themselves. The 
caustic irony of Plautus and Terence, the philosophic raillery of 
Cicero and Lucian might be indulged with impunity. It is also 
true that when the Romans wished to conciliate a particular peo- 
ple, they did not hesitate to express great reverence for the gods 
of that people. But Christianity was not the religion of any 
nation — but of a new sect. It was a religion demanding uncon- 
ditional submission to its requirements, and refusing to enter into 
coalition with any form of idolatry. Hence, there was no motive, 
or policy, in treating it with conciliation. There w^as, on the con- 
trary, everything to provoke jealousy and hatred. And when 
one of the emperors proposed to give Jesus Christ a place among 
the gods of the nation, the proposal was rejected by the senate. 

Moreover, the Romans ascribed their greatness as a people, and 
the unexampled success of their arms, to the favor of their gods. 
It was the rhetorical boast of Min. Felix Octavius, that "because 
of exercising religious discipline in the camp, Rome had stretched 
her dominions beyond the paths of the sun, and the limits of the 
ocean." Hence, however theoretically tolerant of other religions 
there was often a political necessity for the exclusion of foreign 
rites. It was forbidden by law to pay religious honors to any 
deity, which had not been recognized by a legislative act. S. 
iEmiiius Paulus, during his consulship, ordered the temples of 
two foreign deities, not legally recognized, to be destroyed. On 
several occasions the senate felt itself constrained to exert its 
power to prevent religious innovations. Livy quotes an eloquent 
speech of one of the consuls against foreign rites. Dion Cassius 
has transmitted to us a celebrated oration in which Maecenas 
demonstrates to Augustus the danger of tolerating exotic religions, 
and even under the reign of Tiberius—that enemy of gods and 
men — the Egyptian ceremonies were prohibited. A Roman jurist 



282 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



declares it. to be a principle of their law, that those who introduced 
religions of new and doubtful tendency, if men of rank, were to 
be degraded, if plebeians, were to be punished with death ! But 
of all the forms of faith known to the world, Christianity, for the 
reasons already mentioned, was most obnoxious to the jealousy of 
government. It could not be a religio licita of the Roman law. 
Its professors were liable to the charge of high treason. They 
were stigmatized as irreligiosi — hastes Ccesarum, hostes fojpuli 
JRomani. 

Could any one unacquainted with the true nature of Christi- 
anity have foreseen the ominous clouds which were to gather 
around her, and the tempests of fire and blood which were to burst 
upon her, during the long night of her affliction, he would have 
deemed it impossible for her, even to maintain an existence upon 
earth — he would have predicted her speedy and utter annihila- 
tion. 

In this our happy land, where none (as yet) dare lay trammels 
on freedom of opinion, and where the expression, 'persecution for 
conscience^ sake, is hardly understood — since none have any ex- 
perience of its meaning — we can form but an inadequate concep- 
tion of the trials of those whose lives were liable at any moment 
to be terminated by bloody martyrdom — who in professing the 
name of Christ, provoked the wrath of principalities and powers 
— who had to pass by the stake on their way to the communion 
table. When the world respects the rites and institutions of reli- 
gion, it is an easy matter to assume the name of Christian. But 
the profession of Christianity is a very different thing, when the 
official is seen disentangling the thongs of the knotted lash — when 
the headsman runs his nail over the keen edge of the gleaming 
axe — when the torturer stirs the fagots under the red bars of the 
iron griddle — when the executioner jags the nails, and clanks the 
spikes which are to mangle while they transfix the hands and 
feet to the cross — when the hungry lion howls round the amphi- 
theatre — and famished dogs stand ready to gnaw the skulls which 
roll from the dripping scaffold — ah ! then it is a different matter to 
espouse the cause which exposes its professor to terrors like these. 
But for the testimony of faithful history, we would not believe 
that Satanic malice could invent tortures, or that hellish cruelty 
could have been so unfeeling as to inflict torments, such as Chris- 
tians of every age and sex were then compelled to suffer. It was 
.not the terror of death — but the death of terror, which then 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



233 



affrighted the soul. And jf according to the testimony of Lac- 
tan tius there were instances in which magistrates boasted that 
daring their whole administration they had put no Christians to 
death, let Lactantius explain the secret of their boast, and inform 
us what credit is to be given to those who uttered it. He can 
teach us that there are punishments worse than death — that the 
most savage executioners are those who have resolved not to kill 
— that the most dreadful of all sufferings are those which are dis- 
guised under the name of clemency. "They give orders," says 
he, " that strict care be taken of the tortured, that their limbs 
may be repaired for other racks, and their blood recruited afresh 
for other punishments !" Knowing that death would be a release 
to the sufferer, and that it would confer on him the glorious crown 
of martyrdom, and admit him to the reward of the blessed, "they 
inflict," he adds, "the most exquisite pains on the body, and are 
only solicitous lest the tortured victim should expire !" So great 
was the variety of the tortures invented for them, that Domitius 
Ulpianus, a celebrated lawyer, wrote seven books descriptive of 
the different punishments that Christians ought to have inflicted 
on them. But if occasional instances occurred in which humane 
a-nd justice-loving magistrates, yielding to the natural sentiments 
of pity, were willing, with Trajan, to advise that Christians should 
not be sought for, and that only such as were apprehended should 
be capitally punished — yet there were no such restraints upon the 
blind fury of the populace, whose appetite for blood was only 
whetted by each fresh view of the gory scaffold and the crimson 
sands of the arena. 

But Avhy should we dwell upon details which sicken the heart 
and harrow the feelings? It is sufficient to observe, that thou- 
sands upon thousands were the victims of those persecutions, and 
that the whole power of the Roman Empire, which had been suf- 
ficient to subdue the world, was exhausted in the effort to sub- 
due the Church. And here a new phenomenon engages our 
attention. These persecutions, so far from extinguishing the 
Christian name and cause, served only to give to both new honors 
and triumphs. If power smiled upon the Church, it grew — if 
power frowned upon the Church, it grew still faster, and amidst 
indescribable terrors advanced with a heroism which could " smile 
at the drawn dagger, and defy its point." Amid the dark glooms 
of persecution, there blazed forth the burning and shining lights 
of the world. The heroism of the soldier who fights in the pres- 



234 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



ence of thousands, whose victory is celebrated by a nation's accla- 
mations, or whose fall is hallowed by a nation's tears, is nothing 
to the heroism which supported the primitive martyrs through 
long months, and weary years of imprisonment, and which in- 
spired them with a holy serenity when they stood upon the scaf- 
fold, surrounded, not by admiring and applauding thousands, but 
by the hootings and execrations of the infuriated rabble. 

Do you wish for the most illustrious examples of unshaken for- 
titude which the world has known? Then search not for them 
on the bloody deck or on the embattled field — but go to the deserts 
to which the saints have been exiled — to the dungeons in which 
they have been immured — to the funeral piles from which they 
have ascended in chariots of fire, and there behold displays of true 
valor, infinitely transcending the bravery of those who seek the 
bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth, or who rush on death, 
amid the clangor of trumpets, and the thunder of artillery ! 

The resignation of the martyr was no sullen stoicism yielding 
to inevitable necessity. It was not the savage pride of the Indian 
at the stake, who dies, and makes no sign of inward agony. It 
was cheerful acquiescence in the will of Providence. It was the 
deep and beautiful tranquillity of those who believed that to die 
in the arms of Jesus, was to live forever. 

Like the trees which yield their precious gums, only when their 
sides are gashed — like the palm which lifts its head highest when 
the greatest weight is laid upon it — like the burning forest, which 
kindles with fiercer flame just as the tempest beats upon it — so 
Christianity, under the sword, under the heel, under the storm of 
persecution only the more mightily prevailed and grew. The good 
seed of the gospel had been sown over the field of the world, and 
upon that seed, the blood of martyrs fell like fertilizing showers — 
while over it the flame of persecution was but a torrid sun, quick- 
ening it into luxuriant development, and clothing it with a brighter 
verdure. 

It is not Paul at libert} r , but Paul in chains who bears testimony 
before kings, and as a captive makes converts in Caesar's house- 
hold. 

The enemies of Wiclif, years after his death, ordered that his 
remains should be disinterred and scattered. The more effectually 
to effect this purpose, his ashes were cast into one of the branches 
of the river Avon, and thus, says old Fuller, " this brook did con- 
vey his ashes into the Avon — and the Avon into the Severn — and 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



235 



the Severn into the narrow sea, and this into the wide ocean — 
and so the ashes of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which 
is now dispersed all the world over." So too in primitive times, 
the whirlwind of persecution scattered the good seed wherever 
there was a soil on which it could fall, and not only did it germi- 
nate in rich luxuriance on the banks of fertile rivers, and on the 
shores of sunny islands, but far away in the distant desert, there 
was the bloom and fragrance of the rose. 

No arguments were so convincing as the patient sufferings of 
Christians, no miracles so overpowering as their prayers, invoking 
blessings on the heads of their tormentors. 

Do mail-clad soldiers, inured to the atrocities of war, behold a 
young and beautiful female, possessed of all those charms which 
poets delight to celebrate, and sculptors to perpetuate, accused of no 
crime, but that of loving Jesus of Nazareth, do these men of iron 
mould, behold her driven through the streets of Rome stripped of 
her modest veil, scourged as she goes, and scarred with hot irons, 
until she sinks in the arms of death, with murmurs of pity and 
forgiveness upon her lips, and triumph in her eyes — then these 
before unmoved and prayerless men kneel down in the streets, and 
declare that if such are the victories of the Christian faith, they 
too are the disciples of Jesus, henceforth and forever — and there 
beside the body of the murdered girl, they swear allegiance to the 
cause for which she suffered martyrdom. 

Does a little boy charged only with loving him who took little 
children to his arms and to his heart, clasp his hands together as 
he is fastened to the stake, and sing his infant hymn as the flames 
kindle around him, and pray to Jesus not to desert him in the 
fire — there too is a spectacle which makes iron-hearted veterans 
weep — which causes them to call upon the executioners to prepare 
the pile for them also — for say they, if a child can die thus exult- 
ing and go rejoicing to the skies in a whirlwind of fire — his faith 
must have come from the skies ; let ours be such a death, and our 
last end like his. 

Such was the result. The sword of persecution glancing off 
from the shield of Christianity, inflicted mortal wounds upon the 
body of him who drew it, and at last fell broken from the palsied 
arm which had wielded it. 

Such was the triumph of Christianity over its mightiest foe. 
The Roman power, before which the nations had bowed in sub- 
jection, cannot overcome the fishermen of Galilee, but is conquered 



236 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



by them. Historians have made the success of Alexander in 
subduing the Persian empire with an army of thirty thousand, 
the theme of their glowing eulogies — but what was this to the 
achievements of one little band of Apostles? 

Christianity without arms, without allies, without wealth, with- 
out influence, without worldly allurements, goes forth from its 
lowly shed in Bethlehem — seizes upon Jerusalem, overcomes An- 
tioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Alexandria, Rome — overturns idol, altar, 
and temple — sweeps away the religious formations of centuries — 
prostrates ail enemies in the dust — places its foot upon the neck of 
persecution — ascends the imperial throne, and gives laws to the sub- 
jugated nations. Here is a mystery demanding a solution. Here is 
an effect, a stupendous effect, produced without any visible agency or 
discovered natural cause, at all adequate to such a result. Here is a 
consummation attained in defiance of all the ordinary laws which 
control the changes of society, in opposition to all the principles 
which govern the developments of human affairs. Behold the 
Christian Church — a symmetrical edifice — not a heap of build- 
ing materials — but a structure, w T ell cemented, admirably propor- 
tioned, and garnished after the similitude of a palace; exhibiting 
in all its parts evidences of deep design, and matchless skill, and 
resistless power. Whose hands reared these walls, yet strength- 
ening, yet rising, waiting only for the capstone, and the accompa- 
nying shoutings of a multitude which no man can number ? Who 
is the designer and builder of this temple? The Infidel as well 
as the Christian is bound to answer this question. 

The Christian delights to trace in every polished stone, in every 
pillar and battlement of this august edifice, the handiwork of a 
Divine Architect. He clearly sees in all the mighty change^ and 
revolutions which Christianity has effected upon the earth, 

" The unambiguous footsteps of the God 
Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, 
And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds." 

And what is the response of the Infidel? We have it m tbss words 
of one who devoted the best powers of his brilliant genius, and 
the best years of his laborious life to the investigation. Gibbon 
has professed to solve the mystery of the triumph of Christianity, 
without the intervention of a God. To his solution infidelity has 
never suggested an amendment. With what success he has ac- 
complished his undertaking we will proceed to determine. 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



237 



II. 

Were an infidel, possessed of the combined experience and cun- 
ning- of all other infidels, to devote the best talents of his life to 
the elaboration of the most successful and irresistible method for 
bringing Christianity into disrepute, his deliberately matured and 
perfected plan would doubtless be to write a history of some 
prominent empire of (he earlier centuries, in which he would in- 
troduce, incidentally, and with apparent respect, an account of the 
origin and primitive triumphs of Christianity. In the prosecu- 
tion of his work, we would never find him directly denying the 
facts of the evangelical narrative, or openly assailing its doctrines, 
by argument or by ridicule, but contenting himself with placing 
the facts in such a light as to tempt his readers to question and 
deride them — avoiding all manifestation of a partisan spirit, and 
affecting the dignity of a candid and ingenuous inquirer after 
truth — carefully guarding against the appearance of prejudice and 
levity, yet under the guise of a grave and respectful witness, per- 
petually dealing in insinuations and a latent irony, provocative of 
distrust and merriment in the minds of others — never inventing 
calumnies, yet adroitly and with seeming reluctance retailing 
calumnies already invented — presenting in a plausible light the 
objections of the skeptic, and appending replies less impressive 
than the cavils — infusing a full measure of the bane, and but a 
small modicum of the antidote — too sedate to be witty himself, 
yet possessed of an ingenuity so rare, as to preserve his own grav- 
ity, and yet be the cause of wit in other men — never directly 
stating his own inferences, yet suggesting the train of reasoning 
which would inevitably lead his readers to make the desired in- 
ference for themselves — so cunningly summing up the evidence 
for and against the credibility of the sacred narrative, as to create 
an impression of his own impartiality, and at the same time to 
leave an overwhelming weight in the scale of incredibility — ver- 
bally admitting the divine origin of the Christian religion, yet ex- 
hausting all the resources of genius and erudition, in making it 
actually apparent that secondary, or merely human instrumen- 
talities, were sufficient to account for all its triumphs ! Such 
would be the most unanswerable, and the most dangerous of all 
assaults upon the Christian faith. 



238 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The author of " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire/ 
brought with him to his task a combination of qualifications 
such as rarely falls to the lot of any historian. Possessing a 
mind stored with the choice treasures of ancient and modern 
learning, a genius singularly patient in research, a memory 
wonderfully retentive, an industry which never seemed to flag, 
united to a facility of expression which always rendered his 
meaning clear, notwithstanding a tendency to a style somewhat 
elaborate in its structure, and gorgeous in its coloring, — he chose 
for the exercise of these powers, a theme unrivallad in its dignity, 
and without a parallel in its dramatic interest. The result of his 
labors, was a history which for excellence of arrangement, com- 
prehensiveness of design, and vividness of impression, entitles its 
author to rank among the most eminent historians either of 
ancient or of modern times. In the prosecution of a design so 
vast as that of representing by a panoramic view the decline and 
fall of the greatest power that ever bestrode the world — and then 
upon its ruins, the rise of new empires, and of a new civiliza- 
tion — events affecting nearly every nation of the earth, and re- 
quiring centuries for their enactment — it was impossible for the 
historian to overlook the influence of one mighty and ever-promi- 
nent agent in the development of these great issues. That 
" pure and humble religion" which he says, " insinuated itself 
into the minds of men," but which did not, as he states, grow up 
"in silence and obscurity," until its triumphs were complete, but 
which on the contrary, from its very birth, and in all places, 
aroused the passions and obtruded itself upon the notice of men 
— this new and powerful agitator, must have attracted his atten- 
tion in every age and field of his investigations. A historian so 
philosophic in his character, could neither avoid the notice nor 
the explanation, of so singular a phenomenon. Christianity 
claimed a divine origin, and professed to owe its extension to a 
divine power. The historian was compelled, therefore, either to 
admit these assumptions, or denying them, to assign some satis- 
factory explanation of an anomaly, which, otherwise, would have 
remained inexplicable. The first, he does not presume directly 
to do. He nowhere explicitly denies to Christianity a divine 
original. On the contrary, to his own question, " By what means 
did the Christian faith obtain so remarkable a victory over the 
established religions of the earth," he replies, "To this inquiry an 
obvious and satisfactory answer may be returned, that it was 



TTIE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



239 



owing to the convincing evidence of the doctrine itse f, and to the 
overruling- providence of its great Author." Had his inquiry been 
satisfied with this solution, and had he proceeded to illustrate the 
wisdom of divine providence in causing all human instrumental- 
ities to subserve his plans for the government of the world, and 
for the establishment of the Church, then every Christian would 
have been grateful for the pious efforts of a great writer, making 
history the worthy vehicle of vindicating the ways of God to men, 
and of tracing his hand in all the changes which take place in 
hum an affairs. 

But our historian having exhausted his candor by one admis- 
sion, immediately proceeds to vitiate the force of that admission, 
by assigning certain causes merely secondary and human, with 
which to account for all the triumphs of religion, without the in- 
tervention of a God. If these natural causes are of themselves 
sufficient to solve the enigma, then a recognition of the agency 
of any great first cause, is a work of supererogation — and only 
confirms the propriety of the advice, 

Nee Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus. 

Nor is this all. Our author having excluded all supernatural 
machinery from his drama, proceeds to impugn the characters of 
the acknowledged actors, and through them, the character of 
their principles. With a generous regret, accompanied by what 
w T ould have been a sigh, had it not been converted into a sneer, 
he " must leave," as he remarks, " to the theologian, the pleasing 
task of describing religion arrayed in her native purity," while 
he himself discharges the more "melancholy duty of the histo- 
rian, which is to discover the inevitable mixture of corruption, 
which she contracted during her long residence upon earth, 
among a weak and degenerate race of beings." And then in 
his severe and scathing exhibition of the corruptions and super- 
stitions of Christianity in every age, he utterly confounds the 
boundaries between the Church and the world, makes the former 
responsible for the impieties of the latter, and imputes the errors 
of its professors to the imperfections of Christianity itself, which, 
he gently insinuates, may after all have had its birth in some 
Theological Utopia, whose golden age coincided with that of 
Pagan Mythology. 

In all the covert and decorously-worded assaults of this writer, 
there is so little positive assertion, and so much latent insinua- 



240 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



tion, accompanied with well-dissembled candor, that the difficulty 
of counteracting his dangerous policy arises not so much from 
what is boldly expressed as from what is evidently intended, not 
so much from his own recorded deductions, as from the inferences 
to which he adroitly leads the mind of his reader. This policy 
is unquestionably the perfection of infidel art. That brazen, 
rampant, domineering infidelity, which at once arouses and 
alarms every innate religious sentiment of the human bosom, 
and which excites all the enthusiasm of the popular faith, must, 
in the end, strengthen the cause which it thus rudely aims to 
overthrow; but that creeping, cringing, cunning thing, which 
deals in inuendo, and suggestion ; which dreads nothing so much 
as manly, earnest inquiry leading the unbeliever to doubt his 
own skepticism ; which insinuates itself along a tortuous and 
noiseless way, sensitive, watchful, crafty, 

" With eye of lynx, and ear of stag, 
And footfall like the snow — " 

this is the infidelity which accomplishes its deadly mission before 
its presenee is either dreaded or recognized. 

It is painfully curious to observe, how a writer so singularly 
correct and impartial as Mr. Gibbon is, when uninfluenced by 
prejudice becomes uncandid and unfair the instant that Christi- 
anity is made the theme of his discourse. It is a singular psy- 
chological fact, that a man so little given to passion or prejudice, 
so beloved for his social virtues, so eminent for self-control, should, 
nevertheless, perhaps unconsciously to himself, exhibit to others a 
mental bias which leads him invariably to represent, at least one 
subject, through a colored and distorted medium. But however 
strange, it is no unaccountable phenomenon. There is an influ- 
ence, not begotten by philosophy, which clarifies even the intel- 
lect, where spiritual truth is the object of its perception. There 
is a spirit which 

" Doth prefer 
Above all temples the upright heart — " 

and which does not shed its illuminating power upon the under- 
standing, when man's moral nature is not in unison with the 
divine. Gibbon does not present the only instance of a mind 
working vigorously and efficiently, when devoted to other subjects, 
yet displaying confusion, and strength unprofitably exerted, when 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



241 



Christianity is the object of its contemplation. If the most con- 
vincing evidence of this moral inability to be candid and impar- 
tial when an uncongenial theme is the subject of consideration be 
demanded, we have it in the immediate change of toue and tem- 
per which we discover in our author, when he passes from the 
department of profane to that of ecclesiastical history, from the 
delineation of the character of a distinguished pagan to that of a 
distinguished Christian. He can find it in his heart to apologize 
for the superstition, licentiousness, and cruelties of paganism, but 
he scans Christianity with a severe and jealous eye. He waxes 
warm and eloquent in his eulogium of the noble bearing of the 
heathen soldier, but there is no impassioned burst of enthusiasm 
in his recital of the touching resignation, and undaunted firmness 
of the Christian martyr. The devoted allegiance, the all-sacrific- 
ing loyalty of the followers of the Roman eagles, fire his heart 
with admiration, and impart new fervor to his splendid diction, but 
he is frigid and insensate, or quibbling and querulous when he 
alludes to the zealous attachment, and death-despising fidelity of 
the soldiers of the cross. While the exploits of an Alaric, an 
Attila, a Zengis, or a Tamerlane, awaken all the magic power of 
his pen, he sees nothing noteworthy in the career of a Paul, a 
Stephen, an Ignatius, or a Polycarp. 

Milman finely says, " The successes of barbarous energy and 
brute force call forth all the consummate skill of composition : 
while the moral triumphs of Christian benevolence, the tranquil 
heroism of endurance, the blameless purity, the contempt of 
guilty fame, and of honors destructive to the human race, which, 
had they assumed the proud name of philosophy, would have 
been blazoned in his brightest words, because they own religion 
as their principle — sink into narrow asceticism. The glories of 
Christianity, in short, touch no chord in the heart of this writer; 
his imagination remains unkindled ; his words, though they main- 
tain their stately and measured march, have become cool, argu- 
mentative, and inanimate. Who would obscure one hue of that 
gorgeous coloring in which Gibbon has invested the dying forms 
of Paganism, or darken one paragraph in his splendid view of the 
rise and progress of Mahometanism ? But who would not have 
wished the same justice done to Christianity?" 

But in the place of devoting his noble energies to the celebra- 
tion of the virtues of confessors and martyrs — the elite of the 
earth — he gives his pity or his scorn to these, and reserves his 

16 



242 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



admiration for those who bounded all their aims and aspirations 
by the narrow horizon of life — and coming forth in the pomp of 
a diction that " dazzles to blind," he seems to cast even the beau- 
tiful vesture of truth around sentiments false and dangerous. 

With such address, and animated by such a spirit, he proceeds 
to exhaust the resources of his own gifted mind, and of infidelity 
itself, in the attempt to set in array such assignable human causes, 
as may forever obviate the necessity of referring the triumphs of 
Christianity to any supernatural power, by endeavoring to show 
that it was propagated in accordance with the ordinary laws which 
control human affairs, just as other systems and creeds had been, 
which had attained to great popularity and power among the 
nations. The spectacle of one enriched with extraordinary abili- 
ties, thus prostituting his genius to an undertaking so unworthy 
of such endowments, reminds us of a celebrated description, some 
of whose features, at least, we may apply to our distinguished 
author : — 

" He seemed 
For dignity composed, and high exploit, 
But all was false and hollow : though his tongue 
Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear 
The better reason to perplex and clash 
Maturest counsel. 

Yet he pleased the ear 
And with persuasive accents thus began" 

£i We may be permitted," says Mr. Gibbon, " though with be- 
coming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the first, but 
what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of the Chris- 
tian church." And he assigns as the first, " The inflexible, and 
if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Chris- 
tians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from 
the narrow and unsocial spirit, which instead of inviting, had de- 
terred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses." 

It is conceded that the zeal of the primitive heralds of the 
Gospel was steadfast, ardent, undaunted by perils, and uncon- 
querable by persecution ; but there is not a shadow of a reason for 
deriving this zeal from a Jewish origin. The early advocates of 
Christianity belonged, most of them, to the Jewish race — but to 
ascribe the spirit which imbued them, as soon as they embraced 
a new faith, to their old principles, is as miserable an absurdity, 
as it would be to impute the hallowed enthusiasm of modern con- 
verts from heathenism, to their previously bigoted and intolerant 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



243 



zeal for idolatry. The Apostles ascribed their fervor to their con- 
fident belief in the resurrection of Christ, and to their warm, 
constraining, entrancing love for him. But whatever its origin 
might be, its manifestations were very unamiable in Jewish eyes, 
for i* was directed against Jewish as well as against Gentile pre- 
judices, and was perhaps even more offensive to the Hebrew, than 
to the Greek or barbarian The zeal of Peter would indeed im- 
pel him to the most active efforts for the salvation of his country- 
men, but was it his fiery intolerance which made him so success- 
ful in gaining proselytes among them? When he stood in the 
very city which had witnessed the crucifixion of Christ, and ad- 
dressed the very men who had enacted that tragedy, and said, 
" whom ye by wicked hands have crucified and slain," did the 
severity of the charge frighten them into faith in the victim of 
their rage ? Or was there such an attractive power in this accu- 
sation as to bring over thousands of them in a single hour to the 
Christian standard ? To derive such an effect from such a cause 
as the mere zeal, and above all the inflexible and intolerant zeal 
of the Apostle, would be a miserable non seqnitur. The truth is, 
that neither the Jews who believed, nor the Jews who rejected, nor 
the Apostle who preached Christ, ever thought of ascribing such 
wonderful results to blind and pertinacious zeal. And when the 
Apostles turned to the Gentiles, although they were still so inflex- 
ible in their principles, and so intolerant of error, as to refuse 
either to accommodate the doctrines they proclaimed to the tastes 
of their hearers, or to adapt their forms of worship to the cherished 
preferences of idolaters, yet can it be supposed that this stern 
and unyielding attitude was calculated to conciliate the people 
toward whom it was assumed? Such a course was not only im- 
politic, but offensive to the last degree. Such have never been 
the tactics of false religions in making aggressions upon any peo- 
ple. Mahomet, indeed, was intolerant when the "Koran, death, 
or tribute," was his demand, but Mahomet preached at the head 
of an army, and cut his way through all objections with the edge 
of the scimitar. There is nothing more surprising in his rapid 
conquests, than in those of Tamerlane or any of the daring mili- 
tary usurpers who have so cften changed the fortunes of the 
Eastern world. But the zeal of the primitive missionaries was 
not fortified or impelled by any earthly power. And exhibited in 
a character so unlovely as that represented by our author, without 
any adventitious aid, it must have disgusted and repelled. And if 



244 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY, 



the primitive Christians were, as Mr. Gibbon asserts, " not less 
averse to the business, than to the pleasures of this world" — if 
they "refused to take any part in the civil administration, or the 
military defence of the empire" — if they "displayed an indolent 
and criminal disregard to the public welfare" — if they would not 
tolerate the most innocent amusements — if, as he declares, " they 
shut their ears against profane harmony of sounds" — if affecting sin- 
gularity in personal appearance and habits, they thought it sinful 
to " shave their beards," or sleep on " downy pillows" — (because 
Jacob had, some centuries before, reposed his head one night upon a 
stone,) — if they refused to mingle with the heathen either in the 
relations of business, or in the walks of social life, how was it pos- 
sible for them to disseminate their religious opinions? What op- 
portunity could they have enjoyed for making proselytes ? What 
materials could their zeal act upon ? How could it expend itself? 
Thus pent up, and yet raging, it must have consumed only the 
zealot. But if under such circumstances of grim seclusion, and 
'non-communion, they did, nevertheless, by their mere zeal, suc- 
ceed in proselyting thousands, there must have been some secret 
power in their zeal transcending the miraculous ! 

But Mr. Gibbon overlooks one important fact in his argument. 
He imputes this excessive zeal to the weaker party, and makes no 
allowance for the counteracting zeal with which it would be met 
by the numerous and formidable sects which, with one accord, 
bent all their energies not only upon the defeat of Christianity, 
but upon its destruction. Had Judaism, menaced with the over- 
throw of its venerable institutions, its splendid ceremonials, its 
imposing temple service, no conflicting zeal? Had Polytheism 
with its threatened loss of brilliant honors, and unbounded 
wealth, and gigantic power, no resilient countervailing zeal? 
Did both fall before the fanatical and intolerant phrensy of a 
feeble and despised sect ? 

We have already admitted that the propagation of Christianity 
was in a great measure instrumental!} 7 due to the energetic, per- 
severing labors of its early advocates. But theirs w T as a " zeal" 
very different from the blind and mad phrensy which Mr. Gibbon 
has imputed to them under that nance. It was a rational, well- 
founded zeal, tempered with charity, and attended b}- a regard for 
all the proprieties of life. While it was an instrumental cause — 
one of the subordinate agencies employed by Divine Providence 
for the extension of his Church, it was in itself an effect, produced 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



245 



by a higher — the highest cause. It was the result of an unal- 
terable conviction of the truth of Christianity, produced by a divine 
influence upon the minds and hearts of the heralds of salvation. 
Had it been anything else — above all had it been a mere emana- 
tion of senseless bigotry, it would have occasioned evils disastrous 
to the progress of religion. It would have been regarded only as 
raving fanaticism, at first amusing, then irritating, then exaspera- 
ting. Had it been such a zeal as that described by Mr. Gibbon, 
it would for a time, have produced results exactly the opposite to 
those ascribed to it, and then being unsustained by any evidence 
of the truth of the system it advocated, it would of itself, like a 
fire un replenished with fuel, have speedily burnt out. When was 
there ever so ridiculous a thing known, as for a rational man to 
change his favorite opinions, without any conviction of their erro- 
neousness. merely because he came in contact with a more obsti- 
nate man than himself, of a different way of thinking? If head- 
strong and passionate ardor were sufficient to effect such changes, 
then,any Hotspur in controversy might obtain the victory over the 
most logical opponent, who chanced to be less stubborn than his 
adversary. Would Mr. Gibbon himself have abandoned his infi- 
delity and become achampioa for the Christian faith, had he been 
assailed day by day, by some unavoidable and flaming zealot ? If 
60, it is unfortunate that this expedient was not adopted to secure 
the services of so accomplished a writer. Indeed he was pursued 
by Mr. Davis, of Oxford University, through all the devious paths 
of his great history, and by that ardent and pertinacious gentleman 
attacked on all sides, yet so far was this siege from making a con- 
vert of Mr. Gibbon, that, on the contrary, it provoked him to write 
a vindication of his history, in which he manifests no symptoms 
of conviction, and no kind regard for Mr. Davis. 

Had the Apostles gone forth imbued with the principles, and gov- 
erned by the policy, which actuated the disciples of Ignatius Loyo- 
la, instead of displaying to the world " an inflexible and intolerant 
zeal," they would have adapted their teachings to the prejudices, 
habits, and even passions of their proselytes. They would have 
permitted them to retain their ancient superstitions, merely graft- 
ing upon them certain Christian rites and ceremonies. They would 
have profited by the credulity of the ignorant, and flattered the 
independent free-thinking of the educated — they would have been 
severe only upon the vices of the poor, and ever indulgent to the 
inclinations o Uie rich. They would have graduated their mo- 



246 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



rality to the age. propensity, and rank of their neophytes. 'They 
would have imposed no heavy burdens either upon the consciences 
or callings of men — in a word, they would have made it a very 
convenient and pleasant matter to bear the Christian yoke. Had 
they not been penetrated and fired with the most irresistible con- 
viction of their high and solemn mission, they never would have 
pursued the line of conduct which characterized their whole career, 
nor would their labors, severe and unremitting as they were, have 
been crowned with such sublime success, had they not been owned 
and signally blessed of Heaven. Their zeal was a divinely inspi- 
red zeal, and mighty through God to the pulling down of strong 
holds. 

The second reason which our author assigns for the rapid propa- 
gation of Christianity, is, " The doctrine of a future life, improved by 
every additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy 
to that important truth." He specifies these favoring circumstan- 
ces. One of them he declares to be " the universal belief that the 
end of the world, and the kingdom of Heaven were at hand" — the 
hourly " expectation of that moment when the globe itself, and all 
the various races of mankind, should tremble at the appearance 
of their Divine Judge." But from .whom could the early Chris- 
tians have derived such an apprehension of the impending de- 
struction of the world? Not from the Author of Christianity 
himself, for he, when speaking of the time of Judgment, expressly 
declares, " Of that day, and of that hour, knoweth no man, 
no not. the angels which are in Heaven." Nor could it have 
been derived from the chief of the Apostles, for his unequivocal 
language is, " We beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord 
Jesus, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, nor troubled, neither in 
spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the 
Lord is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means." He 
then proceeds to enumerate certain great events which must oc- 
cur before the coming of that day — events, which are having their 
fulfilment even in our own generation. If the Apostle Paul had 
no supernatural insight into futurity, then he accidentally pre- 
dicted a state of affairs which actually existed 1800 years after the 
prophecy was uttered. But if these coming events were supernat- 
urally revealed to him, then he could not have been deluded by 
me belief of the speedy dissolution of nature, and his statements 
show how anxious he w as to guard others from delusion. 

Another of Mr. Gibbon's " weighty circumstances" which he 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



247 



supposes gave efficacy to the doctrine of a future life, was, the 
belief that the personal advent of Christ was at hand, (a millen- 
nium wholly unlike that which is still anticipated, when Christ 
shall extend his spiritual kingdom over all the earth) — " when the 
saints who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously pre- 
served, would reign on earth until the time appointed for the last 
and general resurrection." That such an expectation was in ex- 
istence, is evident from the fact that some of the most eminent 
writers in the primitive church positively denied and refuted such 
a doctrine. But it was never taught by a single Apostle, nor gen- 
erally received by the Church. 

These "weighty circumstances" which Mr. Gibbon would con- 
vert into supports for his proposition, are themselves unsupported, 
and must fall to the ground. And as to the proposition itself, if 
no divine power attended the proclamation of a future life, what in- 
duced such multitudes to believe it? There being no associated 
circumstances arising from the delusions of men to give it efficacy, 
it was the simple doctrine of a future life, which myriads em- 
braced. Why were they overcome by the presentation of this 
truth? What irresistible influence accompanied its publication? 
Are we to look back to the first cause assigned by Mr. Gibbon for 
that mysterious influence? Was it begotten by the " intolerant 
zeal" of the Apostles ? Was this also potent in constraining a 
whole generation to embrace their revelations respecting futurity? 

But our author overlooks some great obstacles to the spread of 
such a doctrine. The first is that the Apostles made this doc- 
trine dependent on the resurrection of the dead. 

In an age when the immortality of the soul was scarcely be- 
lieved, no assertion could have been more provocative of ridicule and 
scorn, than that the body which had seen corruption, and returned 
to its native earth, would be revived, reanimated, and clothed 
with immortality. It was the annunciation of this doctrine 
which caused the Apostle to be regarded as a madman by the 
Roman. And when he visited Athens, whose inhabitants were 
ever eager " to hear some new thing," he presented to their minds 
a novelty too strange and startling. When he spoke of Jesus 
and the resurrection, they characterized him as a " setter forth of 
strange gods." So vague were their ideas of his meaning, that 
they seem to have regarded the resurrection (Araataai^ as one 
divinity, and Jesus as another, and when more fully informed as 



248 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIAN ITY. 



to the Apostle's meaning, they turned away in disgust from a 
tenet so incredible. 

What ! were they to be told that the bodies which had moul- 
dered and mingled with their kindred dust, and then been dissi- 
pated by all the winds of heaven — that the bodies whose very 
tombs had crumbled to atoms, and vanished not only from the 
sight but from the remembrance of men — were to be raised to 
life again ? Were they to be persuaded that the elements would 
ever disgorge the particles which they had swallowed up? — that 
not only the earth, but that the sea should give up its dead ? that 
the forms of those who went down into the fathomless caverns 
of the deep, in the shock of battle and tempest, would emerge from 
their hidden chambers, and darken the blue bosom of the ocean 
as they arose to be judged with those who had slept in the earth? 
Would the warm pulses of life again throb in the scattered 
dust of Aristotle ? Would Socrates, and Plato, and those ancient 
sages who had indulged rather in the fond hope, than in the con- 
fident belief of a future existence, again stand erect upon the 
earth, and gaze upon that sun which centuries ago had looked 
down upon their graves ? No, a doctrine so startling and in- 
credible was worthy only of mockery. 

But there was another, and far greater obstacle to the preva- 
lence of such a view of a future life as that presented by the 
Apostles. The Heaven which they revealed to the faith of mor- 
tals was no such Elysium as that which mythology had delighted 
to present ; no flowery abode of sensual joys and pleasures minis- 
tering to the natural tastes and passions of men ;— no Paradise 
where feasting and revelry ruled the hour, where black-eyed Houris 
reposed in every bower, and whose perfumed air ever vibrated 
with dulcet melodies, such as Mahomet promised to the faithful 
(and of which he permitted them to enjoy such large prelibations 
in this life) — but a world whose element was holiness, one which 
excluded all but the pure in heart, which did not offer one at- 
traction to the covetous, the ambitious, the licentious, or the re- 
vengeful — one which could be attained only by a path narrow, 
rugged, and difficult of ascent. 

Point out to men a heaven where the pleasures of sense may 
be enjoyed in a more exquisite degree, and enjoyed forever ; a 
heaven to which Dives may go with his purple robes and rosy 
wine ; where all the natural inclinations and unhallowed propen 
sities may find unbounded gratification, freed from the restraints 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANS LTY. 



249 



of law and the checks of conscience ; — and men will rivet their 
eager eyes upon it, and if possible force the gates and scale the 
ramparts of a paradise so alluring. But discarding the doctrine 
of a divine influence, what could so change the natural heart of 
man as to cause it to aspire to the pure spiritual joys of a heaven 
like that revealed in the gospel ? Whence did myriads obtain 
those tastes which gave them a relish for the hallowed enjoy- 
ments and employments of glorified beings? Yfhence did im- 
pure grovelling mortals derive those qualifications which prepared 
them for the exalted services of a world of purity, for the dignity 
and the dominion of kings and priests unto God? If such a 
heaven became attractive to the eyes and hearts of mortals, it 
was because their eyes were opened, by some divinely exerted 
power, to the perception of spiritual beauty to which they had 
been blind before, and their hearts to the reception and love of 
truths which otherwise had been objects of disgust and aversion. 

But Christianity asserted the existence of a Hell. If its pic 
ture of heaven was not calculated to engage the affections of 
mankind, w 7 as there anything calculated to gain the credence of 
mankind in its representations of a world of torment and despair ; 

The ancients indeed prated of a Pluto and Tartarus, but be 
fore the publication of Christianity the belief in the future pun 
ishment of the vicious had almost become obsolete, not onl^ 
among the learned, but it was openly denied in the forum ir 
public arguments before the populace. This fact Gibbon admits, 
and forcibly spates. "We are sufficiently acquainted," says he, 
"with the eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, 
and of the first Caesars, with their actions, their characters, and 
their motives, to be assured that their conduct in this life ivas 
never regulated by any serious connection of the rewards or pun- 
ishments of a future state. At the bar and in the senate of 
Rome the ablest orators were not apprehensive of giving offence 
to their hearers by exposing that doctrine as an idle and extrava- 
gant opinion, which was rejected with contempt by every man of 
a liberal education and understanding." Such being the state 
of popular feeling, it is evident that before such an article in the 
Christian creed as the doctrine of a hell, could work upon the 
fears of men, it must be believed. But what is to compel their 
belief? The assertions of a company of ignorant, despised, itin- 
erant Galileans ? 

If these humble fishermen had no other means of verifying 



250 



THE SUCCESS OF CHEISTIANITY. 



their assertions than tHeir bare word, (and what was that worth, 
when made the vehicle of a most improbable and unwelcome 
statement?) would it not excite rather the taunts than the ter- 
rors of the proud Romans? Would it not exasperate rather than 
intimidate, when they observed how their deified heroes and sages 
were consigned to eternal flames, and that too for what they 
esteemed the most exalted virtues ? And if it was true, as Mr. 
Gibbon asserts, that some of the early Christians were weak and 
wicked enough, loudly to rejoice in anticipating the torments of 
unbelievers, what reception would the whole community which 
witnessed such indecent and savage jo}^, give to the doctrine and 
its advocates? But it is notorious that these representations of 
futurity, improbable, and uncongenial as they were, did exert a 
controlling influence, a commanding power, over the minds and 
lives of thousands. What natural principle will account for a 
result so contrary to all that human foresight could predict? 
Have we not here another mark made by the finger of God? 

The third cause assigned by Mr. Gibbon is, " the miraculous 
powers ascribed to the primitive church." Had he been pleased 
to say, the miraculous powers conferred on the Church, or exer- 
cised by the Church, then we could at once throw this reason out 
of the list, for miraculous power actually possessed, could have 
come only from God, and this would have been a primary and 
not a " secondary" cause of the success of Christianity. But ap- 
prehensive of such an inference, he hastens to throw every possi- 
ble discredit upon the primitive miracles. With a Hume-like 
hatred of miracles he insinuates, although he does not assert, that 
they were the pretences of imposture, and he labors to make this 
impression on the minds of his readers by a variety of ingenious 
cavils and cunning suggestions, interspersed with a certain grave 
irony. 

But let us bring the matter to a direct issue. The miracles 
performed by the Apostles were wrought by the power of God, or 
they were the legerdemain of cunning and wicked impostors. 
If they were produced by supernatural power, then they were 
real, and demonstrate Christianity to be of divine origin. If 
they were the impostures of men, could they have possibly escaped 
detection and exposure? If any one chooses to answer this ques- 
tion by asserting that simulated miracles have been employed 
successfully in imposing upon the credulity of men, as in the case 
of the paga'i priests who made dupes of the multitude by their 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



251 



lying wonders, we reply that there is no parallelism in the two 
cases. Pious frauds have never been successful except when they 
have been resorted to by a religion already in power, and when 
exhibited to the unenlightened multitude, already predisposed in 
their favor, and willing to be deceived. There is no analogy be- 
tween such shams and the miracles of Christ and his Apostles. 
They went unattended by confederates, often alone, and always 
were surrounded by those whose prejudices were adverse, and not 
favorable. Their miracles were submitted to the scrutiny of 
envy, interest, wounded pride, and all the acumen which the most 
enlightened and skeptical nation in the world could bring to the 
investigation. 

It is evident, then, that mere pretension to miraculous power 
would have been a suicidal policy: it would have been exposed 
and rebuked ; it would have overwhelmed the already despised 
Apostles with ignominy ; it would have annihilated the prospects 
of the infant Church. It has always been a ruinous policy when 
resorted to in enlightened communities, even when a powerful 
confederacy has been formed among the parties interested, to give 
them support and credit among the people. In the celebrated case 
of the alleged miracles at the tomb of the Abbe Paris, many cir- 
cumstances conspired to give them the greatest possible eclat in 
the community. The memory of the Abbe was held in profound 
and affectionate veneration by the people. All the power of the 
adroit and influential Jansenists was concentrated in the attempt 
to give these miracles credit, and that too among persons pre- 
possessed in their favor. And yet how simple a matter to suppress 
them ! By order of the government, the tomb of the saint to 
whom these miracles were ascribed, was concealed by a wall, and 
then — the performance was ended ! Soon after a placard was 
attached to the wall, on which was written the witty French 
couplet : — 

De par le roy defense a Dieu 
De faire miracle en ce lieu, 

"By order of the King, God is prohibited from working any more 
miracles in this place." The most stupid man could see the point 
of this epigram, for if these miracles were genuine, how could a 
brick-mason shut out Deity? But thereafter the ashes of the 
Abbe rested in peace, evermore. He could not work miracles 
through a wall. 

After the most careful analysis of Mr. Gibbon s long disserfcv 



252 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



tion in support of his third "cause," we can discover but two prop- 
ositions, with an inference, which he only hints at, but evidently 
hopes his readers will draw from the premises which he furnishes 
them. 1. If genuine miracles had been wrought by the early 
heralds of Christianity, men must have been convinced of its su- 
perior claims. 2. Miraculous powers were asserted by the primitive 
Church, but never really possessed. Insinuated inference — there- 
fore, the Church grew because of the popular delusion that it was 
endowed with such power. A very unwarrantable and absurd 
conclusion, indeed, but such is the character and climax of our 
author's logic. We rest satisfied with another, and very different 
conclusion of the whole matter — that if the miracles of the primi- 
tive Church were real, they should have no place among Mr. 
Gibbon's assigned secondary causes ; if they were false, they would 
have resulted in the extinction, and not in the extension of the 
Church. 

We come now to the fourth of the enumerated causes — " the 
pure and austere morals of the Christians," which our author very 
properly ranks among the influences which gained for Christianity 
the respect of mankind. But the pleasure we experience from 
such an admission on the part of an adversary,is instantly checked 
when we find that in immediate connection with this concession, 
he retails the foul slander of their enemies, " that the Christians 
allured into their party the most atrocious criminals, who, as soon 
as they were touched by a sense of remorse, were easily persuaded 
to wash away in the water of baptism, the guilt of their past con- 
duct, for which the temples of their gods refused to grant them 
any expiation." Mr. Gibbon condemns this calumny, and declares 
that it was a reproach suggested by the ignorance or malice of 
infidelity. Why then does he introduce it? How could he have 
been so unguarded as to jeopard his reputation for cautious pru- 
dence, as well as for candor, by resorting to a method of defama- 
tion so common, and so easily detected? It is an old and vulgar 
device to assail character by volunteering some malicious scandal, 
with the hope that it will make its impression, although the retailer 
of the libel attempts to screen his own character by disavowing 
all belief in it? And is it not easy to discover his motive when 
he adds in the same vein of pretended vindication, that "after 
the example of their divine Master, the missionaries of the gospel 
disdained not the society of men, and especially of women, op- 
pressed by the consciousness, and very often by the effects of their 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



253 



vices." The design of these insinuations, in such a connection, is 
obvious. As he could not deny the superior virtues of the Chris- 
tians—affording as they do so powerful an argument for the truth 
of religion — he attempts to divert our attention from the elevated 
source of these virtues, by assigning low and ignoble causes for 
their existence, and by retailing calumnies calculated to diminish 
our estimate of their purity. 

This habit of suggesting the malignant charges of others 
calculated to make an impression upon the memory, and to be 
associated with recollection of whatsoever things are lovely, pure, 
and of good report, we conceive to be one of the most criminal, and 
at the same time dangerous artifices of this historian. Were this 
of unfrequent occurrence, we might regard it as accidental, or fail 
to notice it altogether ; but so perpetually does it recur, that when- 
ever he makes any admission complimentary to the virtues of the 
early Christians, we expect, before the paragraph closes, to find 
something calculated to mar or defile the chaste image which had 
arisen in the mind. 

While it is true that the proclamation of salvation through 
Christ, was freely made to all men, it is not true that the Apostles 
devoted themselves mainly to the reformation of the weak, the 
illiterate, or the abandoned. 

They preached the same gospel, and its provisions were as ne- 
cessary, to Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy counsellor, as to the 
wretched publican, to Dionysius, an Athenian judge, as to Barti- 
meus, the highway beggar, to Damans, an honorable woman, as 
to Magdalen the sinner, to the treasurer of queen Candace as to 
the thief on the cross, to king Agrippa as to the jailer at Philippi. 
And if men whose crimes had been great, smitten with corres- 
ponding remorse, found in the provisions of the gospel a solace 
which they vainly sought in the institutions of Paganism, then this 
but invests the gospel with new glories. That single word, utter- 
most, in one of the promises of the sacred Scriptures, has infused 
hope and joy into many a despairing heart. Terrible indeed are 
the scourges of a guilty conscience — fierce, burning, agonizing are 
the pangs of remorse. Men of old were tormented by demons, 
but what foul fiend ever tormented the soul like the demon-kino-, 
remorse ? What are all the pleasures, the honors, the distinctions, 
the riches of the world, what is all the sympathy of friends, what 
all the endearments of love, to a soul racked with remorse? 
permits no rest to the wounded spirit. It has made the un 



254 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



pected man come forth and charge himself with crimes whose 
burden was too heavy to bear. It has compelled the judge to come 
down from the bench and take the place of the prisoner at the 
bar. It has made men prefer death — with all that lies beyond 
death — to a life maddened by invisible stings. It has driven men 
to rush unbidden on eternity, under the persuasion that its flames 
would be more tolerable than present anguish — that hell would 
prove a refuge, and damnation a release. Remorse cannot find 
any "expiation in the temples of the gods" — it defies all the con- 
solations of earth, and mocks at their attempts to minister ease to 
the stricken despairing soul. To its victims the gospel alone can 
whisper comfort. It has a promise for the worst of men. The 
greatest criminals, when aroused to a sense of their guilt, are of 
all others, in greatest need of the consolations of the gospel. No 
wonder that such should avail themselves of a solace which Pa- 
ganism could not offer. Ancient annals tell us of the restless 
anxiety which distracted Tiberius, of the phantoms of horror which 
haunted Caracalla, of the fearful visions which murdered the sleep 
of Nero — and other criminals of equal guilt, but less notoriety, 
have had their terrors too, which Paganism could not assuage. 
But no case was ever beyond the reach of " salvation to the utter- 
most." There were converts from among debased and double- 
dyed transgressors. But Christianity did not go to the dens of 
infamy, and to the jakes of debauchery for her recruits. She found 
them chiefly among honest, industrious, virtuous poor. She never 
made selections among classes or characters. . She uttered her 
voice in the streets, and her address was, "to you, O ?nen, I cahV , 
But our author does not represent the virtues and the private 
lives of any class of Christians in an attractive light. Had the 
peculiarities of character, and of the habits of the primitive be- 
lievers been such as he depicts, their exhibition would rather have 
extinguished than kindled the admiration of the world. In illus- 
trating this view of his subject, Mr. Gibbon, according to custom, 
throws in so many dark hints and satirical comments, as quite to 
neutralize his admission with regard to the pure and blameless 
lives of the primitive Christians, and almost to stultify his own 
assignment of it as a cause of the diffusion of Christianity. He 
ascribes their exemplary deportment to most unworthy motives. 
He accounts for the sanctity of their lives by the small n ess of 
their number, by the vigilant espionage which they exercised 
over each other, and by their desire to keep up the reputation of 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



255 



their sect in the eyes of the world. In a word, he surmises that 
they abstained from sin rather through fear of detection than 
from love to virtue, and maintained their religious consistency 
from motives of policy and sectarian ambition. 

In our author's sardonic merriment over their self-denial, their 
cleadness to the allurements of sensual pleasure, their morbid 
tenderness of conscience, their immaculate chastity, their whim- 
sical marriage rites, their occasional frailties, their spiritual pride, 
their aversion to business as well as to the amusements of society, 
— we have ample evidence of the inward derision and contempt 
which possessed him when he penned that acknowledgment of 
the pure and austere morals of the primitive Christians. It would 
be difficult to find in the writings of any infidel, condensed in so 
small a space, more disparaging reflections, bitter mockery, and 
derisive scorn, than Gibbon exhibits in his dissertation on the 
virtues of the infant Church. It is Mephistophiles grinning be- 
hind a grave-looking mask. 

The fifth, and last cause which this historian assigns for the 
wide diffusion of Christianity, is what he calls " the union and 
discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an 
increasing and independent state in the heart of the Roman em- 
pire." Alas, that there should have been so little union in the 
Christian republic in any age. Even before the death of the 
Apostles there were numerous heresies, schisms, and divisions. 
If among the discordant voices of the first century there were 
multitudes heard exclaiming, I am for Paul, and I am for Cephas, 
and 1 for-Apollos, so in all subsequent ages the Church has been 
vocal with the party watchwords of interminable sects arrayed 
under the banners of rival leaders. There has indeed been a 
delightful fellowship and bond of union among all evangelical be- 
lievers, formed by their attachment to a comjjnon Saviour, but 
how could Gibbon seriously have ascribed to any organized con- 
federation those rapid and unparalleled conquests of Christianity, 
which were achieved, according to his own showing, a hundred 
and fifty years before any such federative union was formed ? 
Let us observe his own statement of the matter. "The societies 
which were instituted in the cities of the Roman empire were 
united only by the ties of faith and charity. Independence and 
equality formed the basis of their internal constitution." And 
then forgetting that he had made "the discipline" of the 
Church one of the great causes of its extension, in his zeal to 



256 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



introduce something to its disparagement, he adds, "The want of 
discipline was supplied by the occasional assistance of the proph- 
ets, who were called to that function without distinction of age, 
of sex, or of natural abilities, and who as often as they felt the 
divine impulse poured forth the effusions of the spirit in the as- 
sembly of the faithful." But it is not the discipline, but the al- 
leged federative union of the Church which now occupies our 
attention. What is his own testimony on the subject? "Every 
society formed within itself a separate and independent republic ; 
and although the most distant of these little states maintained a 
mutual as well as friendly intercourse of letters and deputations, 
the Christian world was not yet connected by any supreme au- 
thority or legislative assembly." "Such was the mild and equal 
constitution by which the Christians were governed more than a 
hundred years after the death of the Apostles. But before one 
half century had elapsed, the gospel had spread not only throughout 
the Roman empire, but even to Parthia and India. It was not," 
says Mr. Gibbon, until " towards the end of the second century 
that the churches adopted the useful institutions of provincial 
synods," borrowing the idea, as he supposes, from the Amphictyon 
council, the Achaean league, or the Ionian assemblies. After this 
organization, "the Catholic church soon assumed the form and 
acquired the strength of a great federative republic." Now we 
need not consult Tacitus, or any pagan historian, we need not 
turn to church history, or to the sacred Scriptures themselves — we 
need only refer to Gibbon as our authority to be informed that the 
most splendid triumphs of Christianity were witnessed before any 
such federative union was formed, and yet he assigns this union 
as one cause of the rapid growth of the Christian Church ! He 
is equally mistaken too when he refers this rapid increase to the 
strict discipline maintained in the Church. This might be effect- 
ual, to some extent, in retaining the members already within its 
fold, but how could the fear of ecclesiastical censures draw stran- 
gers and heathen into the pale of the Church? And even with 
regard to those who w T ere already in connection with it, is it prob- 
able that the fear of ecclesiastical censures would be as powerful 
in keeping them within its fold as the fear of the racks and flames 
of persecution would be in driving them out of that fold ? 

These are the five famous natural or "secondary causes" of Mr. 
Gibbon, by which he seeks to explain the wonderful promulgation of 
the gospel independent of any supernatural agency. Some of these 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



257 



assigned causes are wholly irrelevant ; others are valid so far 
as they prove that Christianity was greatly favored by such cir- 
cumstances, and such human agencies as God chose to make use 
of in establishing his Church ; (for no believer in the Great 
Author of Christianity, doubts either that he adapted it to the 
world, or that he prepared the world by providential arrangements 
for its reception — compelling even " secondary causes" to further 
the great and glorious purposes of his grace ;) but no candid man, 
with the simple facts of the case before him can be satisfied that 
Mr. Gibbon, with all his labored array of human instrumentalities 
has been able to solve that mystery of a church without worldly 
influence, wealth, learning, rank, or power, represented by men 
ignoble and despised — declaring open war upon all the vanities, 
vices, selfish interests, cherished propensities and deep-rooted super- 
stitions of the world — yet triumphing over prejudice, argument, 
eloquence, philosophy, established religion, the sword of persecu- 
tion, and finally clothing itself with the glory and the honor, the 
dominion and the power ! 

But make a single admission. Ascribe these victories to the 
superintendence and to the imparted aid of the Omniscient and 
Omnipotent, and then all wonder ceases — all mystery vanishes. 
Indeed, willing or unwilling, we are forced to this conclusion. 
There are no principles or causes of production and change in 
the worlds of spirit and of matter, which are not either natural 
or supernatural. ; but having seen that the former is insufficient to 
explain the phenomenon before us, we are forced back upon the 
supernatural. 

Many of the causes enumerated by Mr. Gibbon were in fact 
effects — effects produced by a cause which it did not suit his pur- 
pose to recognize, and his method of explaining the creation of the 
Christian Church resembles the ancient Mythology which repre- 
sented the earth as resting upon the back of a tortoise, but which 
did not inform us what supported the tortoise. Says Hume, 
" when we infer any particular cause from an effect, we must pro- 
portion the one to the other." Here then is the great incontro- 
vertible fact of a religion triumphant over a thousand obsta- 
cles, any one of which would seem sufficient to arrest its pro- 
gress. To refer such an effect to a human cause, and above all 
to such feeble and inadequate causes, as infidelity with its bes$ in- 
genuity has been able to assign, is certainly a shocking violation 
of the principle of the great skeptic. The disproportion is mon- 

17 



258 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



strous. A church resting upon its spire would be a ncvelty in 
architecture, but it would have as stable a foundation as that 
which infidelity gives to Christianity. Regarding the Christian 
church as an edifice whose maker and builder is God, we delight 
to contemplate the lofty spire springing from the temple, and 
pointing to heaven, to remind us of the Almighty architect. The 
divine influence to which the Christian ascribes the success of 
Christianity is sufficient to account for every anomaly, and ade- 
quate to the production of every effect. Sustained and developed 
by omnipotent power, we can see how Christianity, at first appear- 
ing as a twinkling star, surrounded by clouds and thickest glooms, 
should nevertheless increase in magnitude and splendor, and 
cleaving the surrounding veil of darkness shine forth as the me- 
ridian sun. Urged on by the hand that moves the worlds, it can 
understand how the greatest results were accomplished by the 
feeblest instrumentalities — we see that the selection of humble 
fishermen as the heralds of salvation, instead of men of rank, and 
genius, and eloquence, was because " God hath chosen the foolish 
things of the world to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the 
weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty ; 
and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath 
God chosen, yea and things which are not, to bring to naught things 
that are ; that no flesh should glory in his presence," and that the 
power might be seen to be of God. Plain men convinced by the 
miracles which they saw T Christ perform of the truth of his doc- 
trine, and able to convince others of the same truths, by the mir- 
acles which they wrought — with Love to God and love to men 
throbbing in every pulsation of their hearts, and sending the thrill 
of a diviner life through every limb, impelling them to all daring, 
never flagging action — men thus inflamed and thus nerved, went 
forth into the field of the world, and sowed the good seed which 
has never perished, and from which thousands in all generations 
have reaped the harvest of life everlasting. 

The primary cause of the success of Christianity was the oper- 
ation of the Divine Spirit on the minds and hearts of men, giving 
to them spiritual perception— subduing their opposition to the 
truth, and endowing them with the expulsive and impulsive 
power of a new affection. "Tsnyye," said our Saviour to his 
disciples, "in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with 
power from on high." This was doubtless a trying command to 
men in their situation, certain of the resurrection of their Lord, 
assured that his kingdom would one day fill the earth with its 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



259 



glory, and knowing that the salvation of the race depended upon 
the reception of the gospel offer. With such tidings to commu- 
nicate, with such a glorious King to proclaim, they must have 
longed to advance, at once, to the prosecution of their work — 'but 
the time had not yet come. A new and peculiar influence must 
descend from heaven and rest upon them ere they could be quali- 
fied for the undertaking. As the statue of Memnon on the shores 
of the sea stood tuneless and mute, until the rays of the morning 
sun gilded its brow, so these heralds of the gospel had neither gifts 
nor tongues for their sublime proclamation until the light and fire 
from heaven should descend upon their heads, illuminating and 
kindling them, and causing them in turn to illuminate and kindle 
others. But baptized by this heaven-descended influence, though 
ignorant, the}r became wise, though weak, they became resistless, 
though timid, they became animated with a courage, which noth- 
ing in life or death could daunt. By this supernatural agency, 
they Avere endowed not only with the gift of tongues, but with the 
power of working miracles. And now their most extraordinary 
successes are no longer inexplicable. AVhat though they are ob- 
scure, unlettered men, standing perchance in the presence of rank 
and power, what is to prevent them from elevating the humble 
cross, and challenging the admiration and love of beholders for 
a crucified Saviour, while they bear in their hands the credentials 
of heaven, and by signs and mighty wonders are able to display 
to the senses and inmost convictions of men the evidences of an 
Omnipotent and present God, bearing miraculous testimony to the 
truth and importance of their doctrine? What is there longer 
unaccountable in the success of Christianity, the moment that the 
Son of the lowly Yirgin is demonstrated to be the Son of God. and 
when his poor, unlettered, timid followers, are seen to be girded 
with strength from on high ? What is to prevent the triumph of 
doctrines which exhibit the impress of the same Almighty hand 
which has left its autogragh on every leaf of the Book of Nature? 
Should all other miracles be blotted from record, this miracle of 
the swift and universal spread of Christianity would remain a mon- 
ument of its celestial lineage, immovable as the everlasting hills. 

And to the same power which gave to Christianity its first 
victories, must we ascribe its preservation in the world during so 
many centuries, and its present existence, p)wer ; and progress. 
There was a period— we need not now trace the path which led 
to it— when all that was pure, and spiritual, and divine, in Chris- 



260 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



tianity seemed to have been swallowed up, and buried under a 
mass of dead forms and living corruptions — when superstition 
and ignorance brooded over the earth as darkness did upon the 
face of the deep when the earth was without form, and void. 
But Christianity, though disastrously eclipsed, had not been utterly 
extinguished. Deep beneath the smouldering ashes a brand from 
the altar lay buried. It was glowing unseen, like the internal 
fires which are smothered in the deep abysses of the volcano, pres- 
ently to burst forth and shoot up their flames to the empyrean. 
Through all the dark ages the religious element was working, 
and though misdirected, as in the case of the Crusades, it was not 
annihilated. The word of God, though bound, was not utterly 
silent, and even when its whisper was heard, the still small voice 
was glorified. There were not wanting even in the bosom of the 
apostate Church, witnesses for the truth as it is in Jesus. Claudius 
of Turin, in the 9th century, and Peter of Bruys, Arnold of Brescia, 
in the 12th century, Pierre Valdo, Wiclifj Jerome of Prague, 
Anselm of Canterbury, and Savonarola, in later times, all testi- 
fied against the abuses which had corrupted the Church, and 
above all the Yaudois formed a long-continued chain of witnesses 
for the truth, holding up the cardinal doctrines of the gospel even 
as the Alpine mountains which they inhabited lifted up their 
summits above the plains to be bathed in the pure sun-light of 
heaven. The Waldenses nestling in the valleys of Piedmont, 
holding fast to their integrity, served God in ancient purity of 
worship, and never bowed the knee to Baal; and even when the 
sword of the persecuting foe smote among them, they were not 
destroyed, but when scattered, went forth into all parts of Europe 
sowing the good seed of the word of life. It was the noble 
heroism of this band which inspired that immortal sonnet of 
Milton, so truly descriptive of their wrongs, and of the fruit of 
their sufferings. 

" Avenge, 0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold ; 

Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 

When all our Fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones 
Forget not ; in thy book record their groans 

"Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 

Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that roll'd 

Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 

To Heav'n. Their martyr' d blood and ashes sow 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



261 



O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway 
The triple tyrant ; that from these may grow 
A hundred-fold, who having learn'd the way 
Early may fly the Babylonian woe." 

When at last the light of the Reformation blazed forth, it was 
evidently kindled by the same spirit \ hich came down in tongues 
of fire on the day of Pentecost. It was not by might, nor by 
human power, that the Reformation was accomplished. 

Various temporal princes resisted Rome, but one after another 
(to use the fine metaphors of D'Aubigne) they broke in pieces at 
the base of the mighty colossus they undertook to overthrow. 
Learning too awoke and came to the rescue, but learning became 
subsidized, and kissed the feet of the power it attempted to de- 
throne. At last the apostate church undertook to correct its own 
abuses, but corruption could not purify corruption, nor could the 
festering wound originate its own cure. But finally the regen- 
erative power which erected the church of the 1st century on the 
ruins of Polytheism, built up its demolished walls on the ruins 
of Babylon. The divine oracles, so long imprisoned, again spoke 
forth, and the word was life and light. Pure Christianity revived. 
Old things passed away and all things became new. 

Since the glorious era of the Reformation, Christianity has 
illustrated her indestructibility by coming forth unscathed from 
the assaults of other foes. Even under its noon-tide radiance, 
and in the enjoyment of the richest blessings which the gospel 
has communicated to the world, there has arisen an order of men 
whose hearts are filled with rancorous hatred to its doctrines, and 
who have exerted all their powers in the attempt to dislodge its 
truths from the memories and affections of their fellows. Casting 
aside the old weapons of force, the assault has been not upon the 
bodies, but upon the minds of men.* In this campaign Infidelity 
has marshalled all its hosts, it has sent forth its ponderous tomes 
of grave scholastic argument, it has come forth arrayed in the 
imposing garb of philosophy. It has assumed to itself all the 
panoply of science. It has mingled its dogmas with the voice of 

* Some years ago, the author of this Lecture found some remarks on the various 
guises and atrocities of Infidelity (as he thinks), in a newspaper or magazine. Being 
pleased with their animation he carelessly copied, or rather made a running para- 
phrase of them, never expecting to use the paper. The general drift of these re- 
marks he has endeavored to give above. Were it in his power he would quote them 
accurately and doubtless in a more condensed and striking form. 



262 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



history. It has infused its poison into the fountains of literature, 
It has blended its notes with the sweet cadences of poetry. It 
has chanted its blasphemies in softest strains of music. It has 
crept into every house in the garb of fiction. It has shot forth 
the polished arrows of satire, and decked itself with the charms 
of wit and sentiment. It has borrowed the livery of heaven, and 
transformed itself into an angel of light, It has pretended to be 
the only true friend and ally of freedom. It has spread its lures 
for the feet of the aged, and stolen with velvet tread into the 
chambers of youth and innocence. Since the era of the Reforma- 
tion, it has joined hands as did Polytheism of old with persecut- 
ing power. It has again drawn the sword, and kindled the fagot, 
and quarried the prison, and set in order its implements of 
cruelty. It has thundered its denunciations against the heralds 
of the gospel, and armed its myrmidons against the followers of 
the meek and lowly Lamb. It has abolished the temples of the 
Most High, attempted to raze the foundations of the Church, and 
to overwhelm in a tempest of fire and blood, all who professed to 
be followers of the crucified Redeemer. And still the Church 
survives, God being her refuge and strength, and very present 
help in time of trouble. 

There is another and very different illustration of the success" 
of Christianity, to which we would fain advert, viz. to its instru- 
mentality in relieving human wants and woes, its amelioration 
of the wrongs and evils of society, the solace it brings to the 
wounded spirit, and its happy influence on the temporal prospects 
of men. Wherever it has gone it has rebuked oppression, re- 
pressed violence, and compelled vice, abashed, to skulk in dark- 
ness. It has given to us, as a nation, the free institutions which 
command the admiration and excite the hopes of the down-trod- 
den in all lands. It has given to Christendom the power which 
it now exercises over the destiny of the whole w T orld. While Infi- 
delity is like the molten lava which, spouting up from the infernal 
depths of the volcano, overwhelming vineyards and human habi- 
tations in its fiery sweep, then settles down upon the blackened 
ruins, hardening itself to stone — Christianity descends like the gentle 
dews of Heaven, steals through the silent valleys, diffusing fertility 
and fragrance as it goes, causing the dryland to become springs of 
water and the desert to blossom as the rose, while before it sighing 
and sorrow flee away, and in its train come thanksgiving and the 
voice of melody. 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



263 



The author of that admirable little work entitled " The Bible 
True," remarks, that "there are two effects produced by the word 
of God on the hearts of those who embrace it, which are peculiar 
to revelation. One is elevated purity. This effect is not confined 
to the virtuous part of mankind, but is witnessed also in the despe- 
rate, and outrageous, and lawless, who are brought under its power. 
Men fierce as wild beasts, as cruel as death, and ungovern- 
able as the storm, have often felt its purifying power. This has 
been the case from the first. An early Christian writer says, 
"Give me a man of a passionate, abusive, headstrong disposition; 
with a few only of the words of God, I will make him gentle as 
a lamb. Give me a greedy, avaricious, tenacious wretch ; and I 
will teach him to distribute his riches with an unsparing hand. 
Give me a cruel and blood-thirsty monster ; and all his rage shall 
be exchanged to true benignity. Give me a man addicted to in- 
justice, full of ignorance, and immersed in wickedness ; he shall 
soon become just, prudent, and innocent." 

Such was the testimony of one who witnessed the power of 
Christianity in the primitive age. Let us content ourselves with 
a single illustration of its influence in modern times, as exhibited 
in the following narrative extracted from an annual report of the 
Bible Society, issued some years ago. 

" In 1787, the ship Bounty sailed from England to the Pacific in 
quest of young bread-fruit trees to be replanted in the West Indies. 
On her way home the crew mutinied, placed the master and eigh- 
teen others in a frail open boat, with scanty provisions, and com- 
mitted them to the mercy of the ocean. Strange to tell, that boat 
accomplished a voyage of more than 4,000 miles and reached 
England in safety. The mutineers, twenty-five in number, set 
sail for some island in the Pacific. They quarrelled and separated. 
About half of the whole number were captured by an English 
vessel-of-war, carried home and hung in irons. Nine of these 
desperadoes went to Tahiti, took on board nineteen natives, seven 
men and twelve women, and sailed for some uninhabited island in 
the ocean. They found one, Pitcairn's Island. Shortly after land- 
ing, the Tahitian men murdered five of the matineers, upon which 
the twelve women rose at night and killed their seven countrymen. 
Of the four remaining mutineers, one invented a distillery, and 
becoming delirious leaped from a cliff into the sea and was lost. 
Another was shot for attempting to destroy his messmates. Of 
the two then left, one died a natural death, and the other, named 



264 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



John Adams, alone survived. Here their hiding-place was undis- 
turbed until 1814, when it was visited, as also in 1825. Strange 
alterations had taken place. The number of inhabitants had in- 
creased to seventy. There was no debauchery amongst them. 
Good order prevailed. Filial affection and brotherly love pervaded 
the entire society. The blessing of God was invoked on every 
meal. Prayer was offered every morning, noon and evening. The 
laws of civilized society were in force. The rights of property 
were respected. A simple and pure morality was prevalent. How 
was this ? What had made the change? Had vice wrought its 
own cure? Had there been some good principles combined with 
the mutiny and murder, the heathenism and devilish passions, 
which this gang had been guilty of? No. These evils never work 
their own cure, except by consuming, like a fire, their own mate- 
rials. The cause of the change was this. Adams had saved, 
hid and preserved a Bible, and when his comrades were dead, he 
studied it, embraced its promises, believed God's testimony concern- 
ing his Son, was converted, read and taught its truths to his family 
and neighbors, and God blessed his word to their conversion also. 
That very Bible is now in this country. It is a small volume, 
printed in 1765. The salt sea and the salt tears of old Adams 
have taken away its gloss and dimmed its print ; but it contains 
God's testimony of Jesus. That was the secret of its power. The 
worm has eaten it through and through. But the glad tidings to 
sinners can still be read in it. That Bible has travelled round 
the globe, has been the means of reforming a whole community 
of outlaws, and still lives to proclaim its divine Original and its 
life-giving power. When Adams was brought to his death-bed, he 
was old in years, but strong in faith. The friends of the old salt 
collected around him and asked: 'Well, John, what cheer?' 
'Land ahead!' was his characteristic reply. After a few days 
they again gathered around him and said : ' Well, John, how 
now?' He replied : 'Rounding the point into the harbor.' At 
last he lay upon his dying pillow, and his relations were standing 
all around in tears, and yet in hope. One said: ' Brother, how 
now?' 'Let go the anchor,' was his dying exclamation, and he 
fell asleep." 

Having taken this general but extended view of the rise, prog- 
ress, and effects of Christianity, we may be permitted, in conclu- 
sion, to cast a single glance toward the future. 

We have seen enough to convince us that our holy religion is 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



265 



indestructible in its nature, possessing within itself no elements 
of decay, but the principle of immortality. The shield of God is 
spread over it, and the bosses of that buckler are eternal truth 
and power. There let infidelity hurl its darts until with nerve- 
less, withered, wasted arm, it abandons the contest, with the con- 
fession that such assaults are more idle than casting straws against 
the impenetrable scales of Leviathan. Its past history gives the 
bright presage of its future victories. Amidst all the revolutions 
of ages, amidst all the desolations of time, amidst all the changing, 
vanishing creeds and institutions of the world, Christianity still 
survives; and rises to the view as beautiful and glorious, as on 
the day when arrayed in its primal loveliness, it came down from 
Heaven to redeem and regenerate the earth. " Serapis fell with 
Thebes, Baal with Babylon, Apollo with Delphi, and Jupiter 
with the capitol, but Christianity has often beheld the demolition 
of her sacred temples without being convulsed by their fall." It 
derives its vitality from Him who only hath immortality, and its 
shrine is not material walls, but the living heart of the good 
man. When its temples have been overthrown, and its disciples 
compelled to flee the haunts of civilized life, its hymns have 
charmed the solitude of the desert, its prayers have hallowed the 
damp walls of the dungeon, its sacraments have been celebrated 
in the dens of the earth, its most illustrious triumphs have been 
witnessed upon scaffolds, its brightest glories have blazed forth 
from the funeral piles of its martyrs. Other creeds have been 
like the clouds, for a time piled up in dizzy heights and bathed 
in the golden beams of the sun, while Christianity, like the sun 
itself, shines undimmed and unwasted, with none of its original 
glory obscured. Every day its expansive power becomes increas- 
ingly manifest. Its missionaries now traverse all lands, dare all 
climates, and tempt all seas. 

With each returning Sabbath the praises of its exalted Author 
are murmured from ten thousand tongues ; the strain is caught 
up from church to church, and from land to land, until the music 
goes echoing round the world. 

And can we for a moment believe, that a religion so benign, so 
adapted in its provisions to the necessities and woes of the world, 
teaching sweet lessons of resignation under present sorrow, in- 
spiring such joyous anticipations of future blessedness, can ever 
perish? No — these celestial hopes whose untiring wings waft the 
soul above all that is terrestrial, these sublime aspirations, whose 



266 



THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



angel fingers point to the illimitable sky, and cheer the spirit 
with the foretaste of a destiny full of glory, honor, immortality, 
eternal life — oh no — these can never perish — they are heaven- 
born and indestructible. They can never be supplanted by a sul- 
len, cheerless infidelity, which submits because it must, to inexor- 
able fate — which has no prospects, but a cold, bleak world around, 
and a rayless eternity beyond — whose best discovery is, a graix- 
without a resurrection, and a world without a God. 



MORELL'S THEORY DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. 

BY 

THE EE Y. T. Y. MOORE, 

RICHMOND, VA. 



Has God spoken in an authenticated form to man? is one of 
the most momentous questions that man can ask or answer. If 
he has not, then a thousand demands of duty and of destiny 
crowd upon us for solution. What am I? Whence am I? 
Whither am I bound? Why am I here? What relation has my 
here to my hereafter? and kindred queries, rise clamorous and 
pressing upon the soul. We bend over the cradle to learn the 
mystery of our origin, but no note of intelligence comes from the 
little unconscious one that nestles there. We strain our gaze into 
the gloom of the grave to unravel the problem of our destiny, and 
ask " if a man die, shall he live again ?" but no reply comes up 
from the voiceless dwelling of the worm, the clod, and the coffin. 
We turn to the living multitude, the rushing tide of men, and 
ask, what is truth ? What is duty? What is happiness ? What 
is safety ? and there come up to us the infinite voices of a Babel 
confusion. The philosopher says it is here ; the poet says it is 
here ; the Brahmin says it is with me ; the Gnostic says it is with 
me ; the Academy and the Porch, the stern Stoic and the courtly 
Epicurean all cry that the light has come only to them ; the 
Moslem points to the pale gleam of the Crescent and the Jew to 
the red glare of Sinai ; the idealist and the materialist, the mystic 
and the sensationalist, the skeptic and the traditionalist, the eclec- 
tic and the indifferentist, all affirm that they only have the true 
voice of reason, and the true theory of existence. If then, there is 
no utterance from the eternal verity, who shall tell us what is the 
truth amidst this chaotic din of multitudinous voices? If there 
is no spear of Ithuriel, who shall disenchant for us the lurking 
spirit of falsity, and give us a test to distinguish the true from the 
untrue? If there is no clue to this tangled thicket, who shall 
thread the thorny labyrinth, and pluck for us the fruit of the tree 
of life? Alas! if we are left to ourselves, with our purblind 
vision, our flickering light, and our faltering step, the mournful 



270 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



fate of those who have preceded us, relying on the same aids, 
warns us of what must be our inevitable destiny. 

If God has not spoken to man, why did he give him the cruel 
capacity for such questions as these? If he meant to doom him 
to the brute's uncertainty, why did he not give him the precious 
boon of the brute's blank ignorance and content? Why did he 
furnish light for the eye, sound for the ear, fragrance and food for 
their respective organs, and a supply for every rightful demand 
that rises in our nature, but this highest, deepest, most moment- 
ous want of the soul? 

But has he thus left us? Can it be, that he who preserves 
man and beast, who feeds the callow young of the sparrow, and 
hears the lions' whelps when they cry, has forsaken his noblest, 
greatest work, precisely at that point where it was most important 
that the law of supply existing below it, should continue to act? 
Has he left his crowning creature in the crowning purpose and 
need of his existence, as the ostrich leaves her egg in the lone 
and trackless desert, without parental oversight and bereft of 
parental supply? No ! The deepest instincts of our nature, the 
widest generalizations of our experience, and the calmest conjec- 
tures of our reason unite in saying, it cannot be ; God must have 
spoken ; and if his words can but be recognized in the thousand- 
voiced din of this earthly Babel, we shall learn the truth to be 
believed and the duty to be performed. 

If then he has spoken, the query arises, is it in a form accessi- 
ble to all, the high and low, the ignorant and learned, the weak 
of mind as well as the mighty? And is it in a form sufficiently 
reliable to be made trustworthy to all who have access to it? 
These questions are equivalent to the inquiry, is such a thing 
possible to the human soul as the inspiration of the Almighty? 
If so, can its results be made certainly available to any other 
mind than that which originally receives it? This throws open 
to us the whole question of inspiration, its psychological possibility, 
its nature, its extent, and its existence as a fact in the writings 
of the Old and New Testament. 

The views of those who have written on this wide question 
vary from the extreme of credulity and word-worship on the one 
side, to the extreme of skepticism and man-worship on the other. 
But they may all be thrown into two grand categories ; they who 
affirm in some form, the plenary verbal inspiration of the Bible, 
and they who in form or substance deny it. Of those who affirm 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



271 



it, some contenl with J. D. Michaelis, and a few writers of the 
Socinian school, that some portions of the canonical Scriptures are 
thus inspired and some are not. Others, with Calamy, Haldane, 
and Gaussen,* in their otherwise excellent works on this subject, 
contend for the theory of verbal dictation, affirming that the 
canonical writers were the mere amanuenses of the Holy Ghost, 
writing just the very words that they were directed to write, and 
directed always to write the very words which they did write ; a 
theory, however, which when defined and explained as they hold 
it, is found to be rather an unfortunate and extravagant statement 
of the truth, than an assertion of positive error. Others again, 
with Twesten, Smith, Dick, Parry, Wilson, Henderson, Chalmers, 
and the great body of Protestant theologians, hold, that whilst 
we need not and cannot affirm that the writers were mere scribes, 
recording with mechanical accuracy the mere and ipsissima 
verba dictated to them by the Holy Spirit, so that the subjective 
state of mind of Matthew in recording the fact that Christ vis 
born in Bethlehem, was precisely the same with that of Micah in 
predicting it ; yet that in every case there was such an influence 
of the Holy Spirit on the minds of the writers as infallibly to 
direct them what to say and what to omit, so that we should have 
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as far as 
was necessary to the main object of the Bible ; and that whilst 
the very words were not in every case dictated to the writers, yet 
such an influence of the Spirit extended to the words selected, as 
to prevent the use of any that would express an error or an un- 
truth. Of those who deny the plenary inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures, some take the old ground of imposture and fraud, with the 
French school; others like Priestley and the low rationalistic 
party, admit the substantial truth of the facts, and veracity of the 
writers, but deny any divine influence to them, and assert either 
that the facts are not miraculous, or the record not correct ; others, 
with Strauss, make the entire book a bundle of myths, ranking 
it with the legends of all ancient nations concerning the heroic 
ages of their history ; whilst others, with Schleiermacher, admit 
an inspiration, but deny that it is either miraculous, infallible or 
peculiar to these writers. 

The old theory of imposture is now abandoned by nearly all 
intelligent skeptics, and left to the mere canaille of infidelity. It 

* Gaifssen has recently disclaimed this theory, and indeed condemned it as mis- 
chievous, See DAubigne's Authority of God, p. 267. 



272 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



is seen that it fails to account for the admitted facts of \he case, 
to furnish any satisfactory explanation of the conduct of these 
men, or to account for the existence and influence of Christianity 
and the Bible as existing - facts in human history. It is felt that 
these men must have been earnest, true, and sincere, to account 
for their impress on the world's life, by any of the ordinary laws 
of human nature; whilst to affirm any other laws, would be to 
allege a miracle for which there was no proof, to set aside miracles 
for which there was proof ; and therefore to admit a miracle more 
incredible than those that were rejected. But modern criticism 
will take a further step than this, and admit that these writers 
were the actual recipients of a real divine enlightenment, but will 
deny that they were so enlightened as to be the infallible expoun- 
ders of truth and duty, or that their writings can be called inspired 
in any other sense than the word may be loosely and inaccurately 
applied to the writings of any great, earnest and enlightened men, 
who have been the subjects of an afflatus of genius. This we 
believe to be essentially the view presented by Carlyle in his essay 
on Voltaire, and Sartor Resartus, book iii. ch. 7 ; by Bailey, Leigh 
Hunt, the Westminster Review, and other organs of literary skep- 
ticism or free thinking on religious subjects in our own day. 

We have thought it best in an exercise like the present, not to 
attempt a discussion of the whole subject, which must be little 
better than a meagre epitome of the common-places of apologeti- 
cai theology ; but to refer you to the works already named for a 
full treatment of the whole theme, and grapple directly with 
what is the most prevalent form of error on this subject at present 
in the minds of educated and literary men. Happily for our pur- 
pose, we have this theory set forth in a detailed and scientific 
form, which gives us something tangible and definite to encounter. 
Mr. Morell, who gained no small reputation by his History of 
Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, has published a Philosophy 
of Religion, in which he presents this theory in the most formal 
and elaborate manner, and sets up for it the most able and suc- 
cessful defence that we have seen in our language. As the alter- 
native is confessedly between this theory and the old one of 
plenary inspiration, the overthrow of the one will be the admitted 
establishment of the other. 

We propose then to subject to a detailed and crrtical examina- 
tion, Mr. Morell's Theory of Inspiration, as set forth in his Phi- 
losophy of Religion. 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



273 



His theory of Inspiration is based on his psychology, but yet 
may be described in terms sufficiently explicit, without entering 
into the details of his system of intellectual philosophy. Adopt- 
ing the division of the mental operations naturalized in our 
language by Coleridge, under the terms Reason and Understand- 
ing, or as Mr. M. prefers to designate them, the Intuitional and 
the Logical Consciousness, he affirms inspiration to be exclusively 
a phenomenon of the pure reason. It is simply an elevation of 
the intuitive power to a clearer perception of spiritual truth than 
could ordinarily be attained, but not an influence extending to the 
reasoning faculties of the writers so as to insure accuracy of prem- 
ises or conclusion ; nor to their memories, securing accuracy of 
recollection; nor to their judgments, ensuring a proper selection 
of facts and opinions ; nor to their writing of these views, reason- 
ings or recollections, ensuring a fair, truthful and infallible record : 
that this inspiration is not generically different from that which 
poets and other men of genius enjoy, or from a high degree of per- 
sonal holiness ; that in no proper sense can the phrase be applied 
to the Bible so as to assert it to be an infallible rule of faith and 
practice ; that the writers of Scripture do not claim any such in- 
spiration for their writings ; nor is any such consistent with the 
nature of the human mind. Such is the theory which he ad- 
vances as the only rational hypothesis, and as that which is grad- 
ually taking its place in the opinions of the literary and philo- 
sophical world. Let us first look at the arguments on which he 
rests it, and then at the positive evidence against it. 

It is affirmed that inspiration being a state of the mind, it is 
impossible that a book can be inspired any more than that a book 
can reason or feel. 

At first sight this would seem to be a mere quibble and play 
upon words, but the prominence given to it by Mr. M., especially 
in his chapter on Revelation, shows that he regards it as present- 
ing a plain impossibility in the way of the common theory. But, 
in spite of the value which he evidently attaches to it, it is obvi- 
ously equivalent to the allegation, that because genius is an at 
tribute of the mind, therefore there can be no such thing as a 
work of genius ; or because imagination and reasoning are opera- 
tions of the mind, therefore there can be no work of poetry or 
logic. Granting for the present, that the inspiration of the canon- 
ical writers was not generically different from that of the poet or 
the philosopher, it will at least follow, that they are governed by 

18 



274 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



the same laws. Now it is certain, that there is no impossibility 
in giving a record of the mental operations of the poet and the 
philosopher, which shall be a fair and reliable transcript of the 
subjective states of mind existing in each particular case, and 
which shall be rightfully termed poetry and philosophy. Now, if 
the inspired mind perceives spiritual truth, as the poet and phi- 
losopher perceive poetic and philosophical truth, why should that 
be impossible in the one case, which is possible in the other? 
Why should the power that produced the inspiration be supposed 
incapable of extending to the record, and securing a faithful tran- 
script ? This is a power which even a man possesses in regard to 
his fellow, why should it be denied to God ? If one man may 
suggest thoughts to the mind of another, may induce him to re- 
cord them in his own language, and may superintend that record 
so as to secure a faithful representation of these thoughts in words, 
why should the same power be denied to that God who created 
man and gave him all his power? It would surely be possible 
for God to cause a human mind to perceive a perfect system of 
mathematical truth. It would also be possible for him so to influ- 
ence that mind, that it would make a correct record of this system 
in mathematical language. Such a record would then be an in- 
fallible arbiter to which an appeal could be carried in every case 
of disputed mathematics. Why is the same process impossible as 
to religious truth? 

It is said with an air of triumph in reply to this, that such a 
record of religious truth would be no revelation to a mind that 
was not raised to the same level of spiritual intuitions. Granted, 
but would it not be a revelation to one that was ? The revealed 
system of mathematical truth would not be a revelation to one 
who had no mathematical perceptions, but would it not be to one 
who had ? So that even were it true, that the inspired writers 
recorded nothing but that which could be comprehended only by 
one who was capable of like spiritual intuitions, still it would be 
true that to such an one the record might be an infallible tran- 
script of the subjective state of the inspired writer. 

But it is not true, that either the value or the comprehension of 
every part of this record, is limited to minds capable of like spir- 
itual intuitions, any more than it is true that the value and com- 
prehension of every part of Newton's Pnneipia are limited to 
minds capable of the same mathematical perceptions. There are 
many scientific truths which ordinary minds could never have dis- 



INSPIRATION- OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



275 



covered, but which they readily comprehend when discovered, as 
Columbus has shown with his memorable egg. So there are 
many things which the unaided human mind could never have 
originated in regard to spiritual and eternal realities, or if origin- 
ated, could never have verified, but which, when once stated in 
language, are clearly and readily comprehended. 

We do not as yet affirm, that the Scriptures are verbally 
inspired, because of the inspiration of the writers, but we do affirm 
that there is nothing impossible in such a declaration of facts. 
As an executive proclamation may be declared authoritative be- 
cause of the authority of him that issued it; as a will may be 
called testamentary because of the devisory powers vested in the 
testator; as a book may be called mathematical because of the 
thoughts which a mathematical mind has embodied in it ; so may 
the Scriptures in the same sense be called inspired, because they 
set forth in true and faithful manifestation the mental and spirit- 
ual state of their inspired writers. 

This preliminary difficulty being removed, we meet Mr. M. on 
the ground where, after all, the issue must be decided, the con- 
tents of the book itself. He affirms that these contents contra- 
dict the theory of plenary, verbal inspiration, and demand the 
one under discussion. 

It is said that if the Bible had come from God in this plenary 
sense, it would have been given in a more perfect and finished 
form, and not in that fragmentary and successive manner, in pur- 
suance of which, most of its books seem to have been forced into 
existence by the exigencies of existing circumstances, rather than 
as the result of a settled plan for revealing a complete system of 
religious truth. 

We ask in return, has not the earth come forth from the imme- 
diate hand of God ? Why then are not its materials arranged 
with greater regularity ? Why are its rocks not located accord- 
ing to a perfect system of geology, its flora according to a perfect 
system of botany, and- its animals according to a perfect system 
of zoology? If there are reasons of convenience to man requir- 
ing such an arrangement of God's material revelation of himself, 
may not the same arrangements be required in the spiritual reve- 
lation of the same great Nature? And if these arrangements do 
not blot out the mighty sign-manual of Jehovah in the enduring 
rocks, the waving forests, and the roaming tribes ofliving things, 
or cause us to doubt their immediate issue from his hand, why 



276 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



should they have this effect in the unfoldings of himself in his 
word? If he built not the mighty masonry of the Alps accord- 
ing to any of the five orders of architecture, and channelled not 
the rolling rush of the Amazon according to the rules of the 
engineer, why should we demand that a yet more wonderful 
revelation of himself should come forth, Minerva-like, in the 
hard, polished and inflexible panoply of a rigid methodical science? 

If it be replied that the objection is rather to the successive and 
gradual development in fragments of this alleged revelation, than 
to its want of scientific arrangement, then we answer this by 
another question. Does not the geologist tell us that the earth 
passed through many stages of existence, countless ages before 
it was fitted for man in its* present form ? Is it not passing 
through such changes now ? Does this gradual and successive 
unfolding of its states militate against its origin immediately 
from the hand of God? Why then should the same fact prove 
that the Bible in the same plenary sense cannot be the product 
of the immediate hand of Jehovah ? 

If it be objected to this analogy, that the revelation of God 
adduced is one that was made in blind unconscious matter, and 
not in living and conscious spirits, we meet the evasion from an- 
other direction. Those with whom we argue now. assert that 
God is in human history, and that aside from and beyond the 
agency of man, there is a direct and immediate exertion of the 
Divine finger in unfolding its great principles and results. Now 
has not the Bible, as to the point objected to, come forth precisely 
according to the unfoldings of human history? Has it not a 
clearness of arrangement, an unity of purpose, and a completeness 
of parts, that cannot yet be affirmed of that history? If then 
we contend that in like wise, above and beyond the human im- 
pulses and agencies engaged in the production of the Bible, there 
was a Divine power specially directing and determining, to the 
last jot and tittle, its form and structure, shall the fact which 
does not disprove such an interposition in the world's history, dis- 
prove it in the Scriptures? 

But we go further and affirm, that this state of facts was more 
imperatively demanded in the case of the Scriptures than in any 
of the others. Why was God made manifest in the flesh? Ob- 
viously because the great purposes designed to be effected in and 
for the human race by the incarnation, demanded that the Divine 
should be manifested through the human, and not through the 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



277 



angelic, or any new form of created personal existence. Now 
the very same necessities demanded likewise that the revelation 
of the Divine to man in thought, emotion and word, should be 
made through human minds and human hearts. And that it 
may come in contact with human nature at all its points, it must 
not be made through but one man, or one class of men, but 
through such a variety of men as would enable the Divine 
afflatus to breathe through the whole gamut of human sympathy, 
emotion and character, from the lowliest fisherman of Galilee, 
and the humblest herdsman of Tekoah, to the loftiest sage of 
Egypt, the sublimest bard of Judea, and the subtlest logician of 
the school of Gamaliel. And the same reasons that made it 
needful that he who was " God over all, blessed forever," should 
manifest himself in human form in the "seed of David," made 
it also necessary that the revelation of the same God in word, 
should be through this same wondrous Hebrew race. Were the 
human race all moulded in precisely the same matrix of char- 
acter, thought, emotion and external position, this objection to 
the Bible as coming directly from the hand of God, might pos- 
sibly lie. But with all the varieties and inequalities of human 
condition, it is as absurd as to challenge the Divine origin of the 
wondrous vesture of atmosphere that wraps the round earth, be- 
cause at one time it lies thin and cold on the mountain top, at 
another dense and heavy in the valley ; at one time hangs red and 
fiery over the far-stretching desert, at another cool and transparent 
over the dewy landscape of spring ; and at one time sleeps softly 
and pulselessly in the still calm, and at another rushes wildly and 
fearfully in the terrible hurricane. Variety marks God's handi- 
work in nature, and cannot therefore disprove it in revelation. 

The defective morality of the Old Testament is objected to its 
plenary inspiration. 

If this means that the standard of actual attainment in prac- 
tical ethics, was lower under the Old Testament than under the 
New, we concede it, but this fact does not touch the question of 
the inspiration of these books. They record the precise facts of 
the case with infallible accuracy, and on the correctness of this 
record we can rely, for the very reason that it is an inspired docu- 
ment. If however the objection means that the standard of 
requisition was lower, we meet it with an emphatic denial. 
Christ gave no moral law that was not found in the Old Testa- 
ment, and corrected nothing of what was said in the old time but 



278 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



the corrupt glosses and traditions of the fathers. The evil con- 
duct of Noah and David are recorded in warning and condemna- 
tion in the Old Testament precisely as we have that of Judas and 
Peter in the New. And in regard to acts and customs which are 
there approved, such as are not and ought not to be permitted 
now, we affirm that under the particular circumstances of the 
case, they were perfectly consistent with the immutable principles 
of morality. The Levirate law, the law of the avenger of blood, 
the water of jealousy, the judicial rule of the lex talionis, and 
similar institutions, had their origin in that partly nomadic and 
imperfect state of social life from which the Hebrew tribes sprang, 
and were sanctioned and regulated because it was better to allow 
them temporarily to exist than violently to abolish them ; and 
existing by consent of society and permission of God, they violated 
no principle of morality. The spoiling of the Egyptians, the ex- 
termination of the Canaanites, and similar acts, were done by 
the command of God ; were right then, and if commanded by 
God would not be wrong now. The rights of life and property 
are not absolute in man, but only contingent on the will of God, 
and he may take them away, either by a pestilence and a whirl- 
wind, or by the squadrons of an invading army. Men in such 
cases are but the executioners, and surely it will not be denied 
that the right to dispose of human life and property according to 
his will, is vested in the Creator and Sovereign of all, in the 
highest and most absolute sense. In all this then there is noth- 
ing that contradicts a plenary verbal inspiration. 

The inconsistency of the Bible with the results of modern 
scientific research is also objected. 

There is usually much inattention or much disingenuousness 
evinced in pressing this argument. It is affirmed with great 
triumph that the writers of the Bible were ignorant of many of 
the facts of natural science, and hence have used language in 
regard to the phenomena of the physical world to which they at- 
tached conceptions scientifically incorrect. This is deemed suf- 
ficient to prove that they did not possess a plenary inspiration. 
We grant that these writers often used language to which they 
may have attached notions in their own minds, which, owing to 
their ignorance of natural science, were scientifically false. But 
we affirm that this language, when fairly interpreted, does not as- 
sert these scientific errors, and that, as we shall subsequently show, 
their remarkable preservation from tae declaration of scientific 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



279 



error is one of the most signal indications of the superintending 
inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Nor is this peculiar to the lan- 
guage that refers to natural phenomena. The writers of Scrip- 
ture often used language the real and full signification of which 
they did not and could not understand. The Apostle Peter directly 
affirms this fact when he states (1 Pet. i. 10-12) that after the 
ancient prophets wrote their prophecies they sat down reverently 
to study their meaning, 11 searching what or what manner of time 
the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testi- 
fied beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should 
follow: unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but 
unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto 
you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the 
Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven." When Malachi declared 
that Elijah must come, we cannot suppose that he thought of John 
the Baptist. And when David declared " they parted my garments 
among them, and on my vesture did they cast lots," we cannot 
believe that he saw the gambling of the Roman soldiers on Calvary. 
But in these and similar cases, the writers used language attach- 
ing certain conceptions to it, which we now see, not only fairly 
bears another signification, but was actually designed to have such 
a meaning, and hence we give it that interpretation. So we af- 
firm that in precise accordance with this general principle which 
runs through the whole Bible, Moses, Job, Joshua and David used 
language referring to natural phenomena, to which they attached 
conceptions corresponding with the cosmogony and astronomy of 
the age ; but we contend that in no case have they been allowed 
to assert the truth of these scientific misconceptions. They either 
used language that is susceptible of an interpretation conformable 
to the truth, or they used the popular forms of speech that describe 
things as they seem to be, and not as they are. 

We are flippantly told that Joshua talks of the sun standing 
still ; that David speaks of a Hades, which he supposed to be under 
the earth ; that Paul speaks of a third Heaven which he supposed 
to be just beyond the stellar dome ; and that all the writers on the 
work of redemption speak of the earth as possessing an impor 
tance which astronomy shows it does not possess in the universe. 

But we ask the objector, does not every treatise on practical as- 
tronomy speak of the sun rising, and setting, and crossing the line 
of the equinox, when in strictness these things are not so? But 
is any one ever deceived ? Is not this use of language an abso- 



280 



INSPIRATION CF THE SCRIPTURES. 



lute necessity unless we would talk nonsense or confusion? And 
whatever David thought, does he anywhere assert that Hades is 
under the earth ? Does he ever do more than use language in- 
telligible to his contemporaries ? And does Paul anywhere assert 
that Heaven is a mere third story in the great ascending circles of 
the creation? If then, to show those to whom he wrote that he 
meant, not the atmospheric or stellar Heaven, but the Paradise of 
God, he used the common designation, the third Heavens, did he 
affirm any proposition that Lord Rosse's telescope shows to be un- 
true? And when the Scripture doctrine of redemption gives the 
earth an importance of position that is not assigned to it by as- 
tronomy, does it follow that these representations are mutually 
contradictory? Does not history give to Thermopylae, Actium 
and Waterloo an importance that geography does not? But are 
these representations, though both correct, in any real contradic- 
tion? Would not any man be called a fool who would question 
the statements of history as to the stupendous influence that the 
scenes there enacted have had on the world's destiny, because 
these spots are not as large as many a gentleman's plantation? 
When, therefore, the Bible asserts that the earth is the very Ther- 
mopylae of the universe, shall this sa.me objection be flaunted in 
our faces, as a mark of superior wisdom and scientific culture? 

Suppose a fragment were found in some writer anterior to the 
age of Hesiod, asserting that the sky which hung over the north 
pole w T as not upheld by the walls of a crystal sphere as some 
contended, but was suspended over the void of empty space, and 
that the earth itself was self-poised over nc thing, would not such 
a passage be triumphantly adduced by the scholar as a most ama- 
zing anticipation of astronomical science in later times ? And yet 
when we find in a writer older than the very language of Greece, 
the sublime couplet, 

" He spreadeth the north over the empty space, 
And hangtth the earth upon nothing:"* 

such a fragment is skipped over with a contemptuous fling at He- 
brew cosmogony. 

The same unfairness appears in the objections drawn from 
geology. The Bible nowhere affirms that the matter of the world 
is but six thousand years old. On the contrary, when it speaks 
of the earth as compared w T ith the race of man that lives upon it, 

*Job xxvi. 7. 



INSPIRATION OF TlxE SCRIPTURES. 



281 



it represents the one as the fitting type of that high and solitary- 
One who is from everlasting to everlasting, while the other is as 
the grass which in the morning flourisheth and groweth up, and 
in the evening is cut down and withereth. It simply affirms of 
the Heavens and the earth that in the beginning they were created 
by God. Does geology contradict this ? It also affirms that about 
six thousand years ago, the earth received in six days substantially 
its present arrangement, from a pre-existent state of chaotic con- 
fusion, and it describes this sublime scene with graphic and dra- 
matic beauty, as it would have appeared to a spectator standing 
on the earth and gazing on these mighty changes as they went 
forward. Does geology contradict this, or show it to be impossible ? 
It asserts that some four thousand years ago there was an univer- 
sal deluge of waters, miraculously and judicially spread over the 
earth. Now even if the flood-marks that were once pointed out 
as traces of the deluge, may be explained on other grounds, is 
there anything in geological researches that contradicts the testi- 
mony of history and tradition in regard to this great and awful 
fact? Does geology do anything more than leave it an open ques- 
tion? Whilst then we admire this young Titan of the sciences as> 
it upheaves the foundations of the earth, and shows us the mighty 
corner-stones of its structure ; and whilst we are grateful to it for 
its contributions to natural and even remotely to revealed theology ; 
yet when it leaves its pickaxe and hammer among the rocks, and 
attempts on some Pelion or Ossa of gigantic speculation to scale 
the battlements of God's own council chamber, and impeach the 
fidelity of a record with which it has legitimately nothing to do 
we must meet it with the stern words that came to the startled 
Emir of Uz, from the dark throat of the storm — 

" Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge ? 
Gird up now thy loins like a man ; 
I will put questions to thee, and do thou inform me. 
Where wast thou when I founded the earth ? 
Declare, if thou hast knowledge ! 
Who then fixed the measure of it ? For thou knowest ! 
Who stretched the line upon it ? 
Upon what are its foundations settled ? 
Or who laid its corner-stone ? 
When the morning stars sang together, 
And all the sons of God shouted for joy ? 
Who shut up the sea with doors 
In its bursting forth as from the womb ? 
When I made the cloud its garment, 



282 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



And swathed it in thick darkness? 

I measured out for it my limits, 

And fixed its bars and doors ; 

And said, thus far shalt thou come, but no further, 

And here shall thy proud waves be stayed !"* 

Whilst we know the dignified and reverent response that will 
be made by the truly philosophical geologist to this sublime chal- 
lenge ; whilst we rejoice to meet in the Bucklands, the Pye Smiths, 
the Millers, and the Hitchcocks, men not more eminent for their 
love of God's works than their reverence for God's word ; and 
whilst we freely acquit this noble science of any antagonism or 
hostility to revelation honestly interpreted, yet we also know that 
the stern rebuke it conveys is richly deserved by the sciolist and 
the smatterer, who ignorant or forgetful of the legitimate province 
of human science betakes himself to world-building and world- 
dreaming about "the natural history of creation." 

We cannot go into any farther detail in meeting this class of 
objections, having said enough to indicate the general principles 
on which all the alleged discrepancies of scientific truth with 
revelation, may be fully and fairly met and set aside. When the 
Bible is fairly interpreted, there is no such discrepancy with any 
established fact of science. The fancies of interpreters and the 
fancies of philosophers may conflict, but fancies are not facts, and 
neither science nor revelation should be held accountable for 
the follies of their friends. God speaking in his works, can never 
contradict God speaking in his word, and we need give ourselves 
no anxiety about any possible inconsistency between the two 
utterances. The watchful and hostile jealousy with which science 
has sometimes been regarded by good men, as something fraught 
with possible danger to the truth of revelation, is as impolitic as 
it is unreasonable. Let the students of each explore their own 
department without any jealous or suspicious reference to the 
other, and their results in the end, when clearly reached, will be 
found as perfectly consistent as the laws of astronomy and the 
facts of geology; like them, the one is of heaven and the other 
of earth, but both the interpreters of him who has made both 
heaven and earth. 

We do not affirm that everything in the Bible is true, but we 
do affirm that everything which the Bible says to be true, is true. 
We do not affirm that all the opinions set forth, and all the acts 

* Job xxxviii. 1-1 1 Barnes' translation. 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



283 



recorded there are right ; but we do affirm that these opinions were 
held and these acts done, pre^sely as they are represented. We 
do not affirm that Moses understood geology, David the Coper- 
nican system, or Paul the categories and predicables of logic ; but 
we do affirm that neither Moses nor David have declared any- 
thing to be scientifically true, which is scientifically false ; and that 
if Paul sometimes reaches his conclusion by one gigantic bound, 
instead of climbing the slow ladder of an authorized syllogism, he 
yet never reaches a conclusion that is untrue, or asserts a premise 
that is untenable. And if the grinders of Kant's categories say 
that they cannot understand some of Paul's reasonings, and that 
they seem to them palpably illogical, we have only to remind them 
of the gruff response of the old literary Leviathan to a similar 
objection, "Sir, I am bound to furnish you with arguments, not 
brains." 

It is affirmed that the writers of the Bible do not claim such a 
power as we ascribe to them. If by this is meant, that each 
writer does not in express and formal terms always announce, 
that he is commissioned to write by the inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost, we grant it. Suppose that they had made this constant 
reiteration of plenary authority, would it not then have been 
objected, that this anxious solicitude to assert these pretensions 
implied a secret conviction that there was too much ground to 
question them? Is not this uneasy assertion of divine authority, 
such as we see in the Koran or the book of Mormon, one of the 
recognized marks of imposture? If this feature had been found 
in the Bible as the objection demands, would not the philosophic 
eye have detected in it the want of that grand and lofty indiffer- 
ence, that feeling of the self-evidencing character of their claims, 
that is the characteristic of all true power and all divine impulse? 
Does every message of a President or a King contain a formal 
statement of the right by which he thus speaks? Does every act 
and record of a legislature contain the commissions and certificates 
of election by virtue of w 7 hich its members enact laws? Does 
every paper of an ambassador contain a formal assertion of his 
plenipotentiary powers? Would not such a thing be either sus- 
picious or ridiculous? Why then is it demanded of the writers 
of the Bible? 

Do you say that it is unreasonable to ask you to receive these 
books as authoritative, without some authentication of their author- 
ity? We grant it; but reply that it is equally unreasonable to 



284 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



demand this particular form of authentication, and be satisfied 
with no other, when it is freely dispensed with in analogous cases. 
Let the authority of a man to write, speak or act, be distinctly 
recognized and sanctioned by those competent to decide on his 
qualifications, and whether he asserts it or not, we are bound to 
admit it on the endorsement of these competent judges. If then 
these writers have sometimes asserted positively that they were 
speaking the very words of God, using such formulas as " thus 
saith the Lord," &c. ; if, in other cases, ihey have asserted it 
impliedly by the aw T ful authority they claim for the words they 
utter, and the terrible sanctions they assert as belonging to them ; 
if, in other cases, an authentication was given them by those 
whose circumstances enabled them to decide upon the proofs of 
their commission ; if the entire volume was regarded by them as 
the work of the Holy Ghost, and designated by specific titles, such 
as the oracles of God, the Scriptures, (fee. &c, the absence of this 
formal claim in each particular case, cannot be held to disprove 
the alleged inspiration of the Spirit. That the marks above 
named are found in all the canonical books, is fully shown in any 
ordinary treatise on the Canon of Scripture. 

But if the absence of a formal claim to a verbal inspiration be 
an argument against its existence, a similar omission as to any 
other kind of inspiration must be equally conclusive against its 
existence. Now it so happens, that the writers of the Scriptures in 
no instance claim any such inspiration as Mr. M. refers to them, 
nor is it even pretended, that they have ever done so. If then 
this alleged absence of claim (which we do not admit) disproved 
the verbal theory, much more must it disprove the one brought in 
its place, for the wildest dreamer has never pretended, that the 
writers of the Scriptures claimed to be simply enlightened as to 
their intuitive consciousness. This objection then, if it proves any- 
thing, proves too much, for it strikes Mr. M.'s theory even more 
fatally than it does that of plenary verbal Inspiration. 

But the most extraordinary position taken by M. Morell is, that 
the primitive church did not regard these books as verbally 
inspired. This is a marvellous assertion in the direct view of the 
very superstition with which many in the primitive church regard- 
ed the mere words of the Scripture ; the mysteries that they often 
found in the very letters of Holy Writ, and the controversies that 
existed as to the right of some books to be admitted into the 
Canon. We cannot enter into the proof of this position in detail, 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



285 



but must be content with referring to sources where that proof is 
spread out at length. Dr. Rudelbach, a German, has collected 
the testimonies to this point with great industry and patience. 
And to those to whom this work is not accessible, we may recom- 
mend Paley's Evidences, Lardner's Credibility ; Daille on the 
Fathers, book 2, chap. 2 ; Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium, 
book 2, ch. 3, rule 14 ; Bingham's Antiquities, book 14, ch. 3 ; or 
Whitby's Prefaces in his Commentary on the New Testament. In 
any of these, enough will be found to show that this assertion is 
grossly incorrect. 

Such then is the defence that is set up for this theory of inspi- 
ration, which after all is not so much a defence as an attack. It 
is remarkable, that in accordance with the ancient tactics on this 
question, the only plea set up for the new theory is an assault 
upon the old, as if the overthrow of the one was the necessary 
establishment of the other. As then we have seen these objections 
to be unfounded, the old theory remains unharmed, whilst the 
new one, by its own chosen mode of warfare, is defeated. Here 
then' we might pause, but that the truth may be triumphantly 
vindicated, we shall take a new position and pass from the attitude 
of defence to that of attack. We turn now to the positive evidence 
against this theory. 

The first objection we urge against this theory is, that it is a 
mere figment, invented without any reference to the facts to be 
explained, or the phenomena to be elucidated. 

Sidney Smith once wittily objected to reading a book before 
reviewing it, because it had such a tendency to prejudice a man. 
One would be almost disposed to think that Mr. M. had taken the 
advice of the laughter-loving Canon of St. Paul's. He under- 
takes to describe the subjective condition of inspired men, and yet 
not once does he refer to the account given by these men them- 
selves of their state of mind. He professes to furnish a theory 
that shall explain all the facts of the case, yet never once alludes 
to those facts in constructing this theory. He assumes a certain 
psychology, and because he cannot find in its ordinary workings 
such a phenomenon as verbal inspiration, he denies its existence, 
in the very face of the reiterated affirmation that this is not one 
of the ordinary, but one of the extraordinary, phases of the human 
soul. He forms his theory and then tells us that if the facts are 
not conformable to it, they ought to be, and gives himself no fur- 
ther trouble with them. This mode of procedure in constructing 



286 



INSPIRATION" OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



any hypothesis is un philosophical, but in framing a theory on 
facts so unique and solemn as these, it is unpardonable. 

But it is not only constructed without reference to the facts to 
be explained, but also in direct inconsistency with them. 

It asserts that inspiration belongs to the writers of Scripture, 
but not to the Scripture itelf. This assertion is flatly contradicted 
in the account given by the writers themselves of the matter. 
2 Tim. iii. 16, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is 
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness." Here it is asserted that the writing is inspired, 
and not simply the writers, and a writing can be inspired only by 
a verbal inspiration. The theopneusty is affirmed of the Scrip- 
ture and not of the writers. If it be asked what is meant by this 
theopneusty, or inspiration of God, we are answered in 2 Pet. i. 21, 
" Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
The words of Scripture then were the result of the action of the 
Holy Ghost on the minds of the writers, and therefore, the sub- 
jects of inspiration. To place this beyond all question, the same 
Apostle asserts (1 Pet. i. 10-12), that these men did not always 
know the full significance of the words they were directed to use, 
out searched into their meaning, because these words were in- 
tended rather for a later age of the Church than for that which 
first received them. And this language is sanctioned by our Lord 
himself when he affirms, Matt. xxii. 43, that David spake by the 
Holy Ghost when inditing the Psalms ; and extended to the whole 
Jewish Canon, when he appeals to the Scriptures on every ques- 
tion concerning truth and duty, stating that they cannot be broken 
(John x. 34, 35) ; that they are an infallible tribunal of appeal 
in every question as to God's will (Matt. xix. 4-6; John v. 39), 
thus sanctioning the doctrine of the Jewish Church as to these 
writings, that they are truly the word of God. And this verbal 
inspiration is affirmed by our Lord yet more emphatically, when 
we find him at times basing important arguments on the mere 
and apparently casual use of a word, as in the case of the doc- 
trine of the resurrection. Matt. xxii. 32. It is also implied, 
where he directs the Jews to search the Scriptures, as a perfect 
standard of truth, and declares that whilst heaven and earth shall 
pass away, not one jot or tittle of them shall ever pass away un- 
fulfilled. These strong affirmations it must be noted w T ere made 
not of the mental state of the writers, but of their writings, thus 
endorsing the claim set up for these writings as the word of God, 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



287 



the oracles of God, and the writings that stood apart and sacred 
from all others as the infallible standard of truth and duty. This 
high claim was extended from the Old Testament to the New by 
Peter, when he classed the writings of Paul with the other Scrip- 
tures, 2 Pet. iii. 16. How far this divine superintendence and 
authority extended, is explained by Paul when he says, 1 Cor. 
ii. 13, "Which things we speak not in the words which man's 
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth ;" and also, 

1 Thess. ii. 13, " When ye received the word of God which ye 
heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in 
truth, the word of God." And lest this should be referred to his 
oral rather than his written instructions, he expressly affirms in 

2 Cor. x. 11, and 2 Thess. ii. 15, that they are of equal author- 
ity. When, therefore, it is affirmed that all Scripture is inspired ; 
that the very words are taught by the Holy Ghost; when Paul 
explains in what sense he uses this language, as to his own wri- 
tings, and Peter extends this sense to all the rest, by classifying 
Paul's writings with " the other Scriptures," can there be a more 
audacious misstatement than that which alleges that these men 
do not claim for their writings the plenary verbal inspiration of 
the Holy Ghost? 

This theory is contradicted by the authority which these writers 
claim for their writings. 

A clear and broad distinction is made between these and all 
other writings, declaring the one to be the word of man, the other 
the word of God. Many of them prefix to their statements the 
formula, " thus saith the Lord," which, if it means anything, 
must mean that the words they were about to utter, were not 
theirs, but God's. Hence they claim the most awful authority for 
everything that they say, and demand our unconditional belief 
under the most terrific penalties. They say, " We are of God. 
He that knoweth God, heareth us," 1 John iv. 6 ; " We command 
you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," 2 Thess. iii. 6 ; 
"He that despiseth, despiseth not man but God," 1 Thess. ii. 13. 
If an angel from heaven preach any other gospel, let him be ac- 
cursed. Here is an authority the most fearful known to men, 
claimed to challenge belief. Belief is the assent of the mind to a 
proposition. A proposition must be set forth in words. To de- 
mand belief, therefore, under sanctions so terrible, is to claim an 
authority for their words which can only be explained on the 
theory of their plenary verbal inspiration. 



288 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



This theory is contradicted by the specific promises of Christ 
made to his disciples. 

Every man who has a new discovery in science to announce to 
the world, takes care to secure such a vehicle of transmission as 
shall, with all possible accuracy, declare precisely what his discov- 
eries are. Every government which has any great transaction to 
proclaim, whether it be a law, a treaty, or an amnesty on specified 
conditions, uses great care in securing correctness in its records, 
that these records may clearly and certainly set forth the precise 
facts which are necessary to be known, in a form that will be 
trustworthy and reliable. Were a government to be careless on 
this point, it would be justly chargeable with a gross and criminal 
indifference to the interests and rights of its subjects. It was 
justly regarded as one of the most atrocious marks of tyranny 
and injustice in a Roman emperor, that he enacted laws and 
caused them to be hung up so high on pillars that no one could 
with certainty and distinctness make out their precise requisi- 
tions. 

Now if it be true that there are great discoveries of life and im- 
mortality to be brought to light in the gospel, is it credible that 
no special arrangements would be made to secure the record of 
these discoveries in language that will not deceive or mislead? 
If the government of God has laws to proclaim, treaties of recon- 
ciliation to propose, and amnesties of pardon on certain conditions 
to offer, would it not be a refinement of cruelty beyond that of 
Caligula, to require us to conform to these high transactions on 
peril of eternal penalties, and yet make no arrangements by which 
we should certainly know what they were? Would it not be 
monstrous to suppose that these awful utterances of the Eternal 
voices were flung forth to the winds, with less care to secure the 
certain accuracy of their record than was given to the leaves that 
came forth from the cave of the Cumeean Sibyl? The supposi- 
tion is incredible, yet it is the precise supposition required by the 
theory under discussion. But what are the facts of the case? 
Did Jesus Christ, after such unspeakable toil and agony to work 
out a plan of salvation for man, make no arrangements for its 
secure record and transmission to those for whom it was intended? 
Did he do even less than Caligula, who at least caused his enact- 
ments to be written? Did he treat this most wondrous of all the 
productions of creative might, as the ostrich treats her egg, leav- 
ing its preservation to the oversight of mere chance? No! He 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



289 



promised a specific divine assistance in communicating this reli- 
gion to men. "The Holy Ghost shall teach you what you ought 
to say." " The Holy Ghost shall teach you all things." " He 
shall guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, 
but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will 
show you things to come." Luke xii. 12 ; John xiv. 26 ; xvi. 13 ; 
xv. 26, 27, &c. In these and kindred passages, Christ promises 
to the disciples, (I.) That the Holy Ghost should be given to 
them. (2.) That he would suggest to them the very words they 
must utter, so that even premeditation was not necessary. (3.) 
That as conversations were to be stated which no ordinary mem- 
ory could retain, and facts announced which no ordinary sagacity 
could predict, their minds should be certified as to the past, the 
present, and the future. (4.) That as the result of this, their 
words were deserving of the most unquestioning faith as infallibly 
true. 

Now we care not how you limit this promise, still it explains 
the nature of inspiration in a way that overthrows this theory. 
Even if limited to the specific case in reference to which it was 
made, it affirms the extension of inspiration to the very words of 
the inspired men, giving those words a divine, and therefore, an 
infallible authority. This is in direct contradiction of the theory 
under discussion. 

But to suppose its limitation to one specific case, is to stultify 
our Lord in the arrangements he made for the promulgation of 
his laws, and the extension of his kingdom ; as well as to charge 
him with the most heartless indifTerence to those for whom he 
showed the highest possible regard and interest, in the highest 
possible way. It would be to suppose the giving of divine aid 
when his followers needed it least, and withholding it when they 
needed it most. It would be to suppose that they had this inspi- 
ration when they were speaking to a few Jews with the tongue, 
and that they had it not when they were speaking to the whole 
world in the most distant generations, by the pen. It would be 
to suppose that this divine influence was extended to their words 
when nothing depended upon, those words but their acquittal be- 
fore some petty tribunal, but was withdrawn when the belief or 
unbelief of these words was to determine the salvation of unborn 
millions. These suppositions being preposterous and incredible, 
the promises of our Lord most distinctly guarantee the verbal in- 
spiration of the Holy Ghost in the promulgation of his religion, 

19 



290 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



and therefore in the Scriptures, its orcmulgation to the whole 
world. 

Another fa^t that stands in contradiction of this theory is, the 
remarkable freedom of these men from the errors incident to 
their age. 

Had they all been men of the same generation and the same 
country, so that mutual understanding might be supposed ; had 
they been disciples of the same school, trained under the same 
influences, or even all been men of a high degree of mental cul- 
ture, this remarkable fact might more readily be explained. But 
the reverse of these are the facts. They were men of every 
grade, both of intellect and culture, from the sage who was versed 
in all the lore of Egypt, and the orator who studied at the feet 
of Gamaliel, to the lowly herdsman of Tekoa, and the unlet- 
tered fisherman of Galilee. They were found in every part of 
the civilized world, from the templed margin of the solemn Nile, 
to the shady banks of the lordly Euphrates ; from the lonely 
sands of Arabia, and the rocky deserts of Judea, to the metro- 
politan splendors of Jerusalem, Ephesus, Corinth and Rome. 
They were trained under every school of belief, from the dreamy 
pantheism of Central Asia, and the gigantic astrologies of Egypt, 
to the gorgeous polytheism of Greece, and the godless epicu- 
reanism of Rome. They run through fifty generations of the 
human race, from the sage who wrote, and the bard who sung, 
six hundred years before Lycurgus gave his laws, or Homer tuned 
his lyre, to the lonely exile of Patmos, who saw the splendid sun- 
set of the Augustan day of Roman literature and art. They 
give us every species of composition, from those daring lyrics that 
seem written to the awful notes of the whirlwind or the terrible 
crash of the thunder, to the most jejune genealogies and the 
most iron-jointed chain-work of argument. They allude inciden- 
tally to every department of Nature, from Arcturus and Orion, to 
the lilies of the field. 

Now why do we find these writers agreeing with each other so 
wonderfully that no fair mind has, as some of the first intellects 
of the world believe, ever yet detected a contradiction ? Why 
have they given us a philosophy sublimer than Plato's, and an 
ethics purer than Aristotle's? And why do they so strangely 
escape the errors of their day 7 Why have they not given us 
such theogonies and cosmogonies as Hesiod, Ovid and Lucretius ; 
such pantheism as the Greeks ; such astrology as the Egyptians ; 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



291 



or such wild, monstrous and incredible tales as we have gravely 
recorded in the Natural Histories of Aristotle and the elder Pliny? 
Why have these fifty men, writing during the fifteen hundred 
years that cover the four great monarchies, and the splendid eras 
of Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Grecian and Roman civiliza- 
tion, and appearing, most of them at least, in an obscure and 
trampled province, yet been kept from mere scientific error, as no 
fifty writers of the same period have been, even though you select 
them from the most learned and lofty intellects of the age? 

If it be said that it was the nature of the subjects on which 
they wrote, that preserved them from error and puerility, then we 
place the fifty fathers of the Christian church beside the fifty 
writers of the Scripture, and ask why the nature of the subjects 
did not preserve them from such mistakes? Read Tertullian's 
ascription of feeling and understanding to plants ; Augustine's 
vehement and scornful denunciation of the allegation that there 
were antipodes ; Ambrose's opinion that the sun drew up water 
to cool and refresh himself in his extreme heat; and countless 
errors in history, geography, philology and criticism ; and tell us 
why these fifty men, writing during fifteen hundred years, were 
exempted from the errors into which the fifty Christian fathers 
fell, writing, with the Scriptures in their hands, during less than 
five hundred years ? 

If it be said that it was because of the darkness that settled on 
the world after the waning of the Roman glory, we meet this 
evasion by an exemplum cruris. We have apocryphal writings 
that date back so near to the apostolic age that some have con- 
tended for their canonical authority. There are gospels, acts, 
and epistles which are evident imitations of those found in the 
New Testament canon, and which were obviously written by 
those who believed in Christianity as a religion from God. If 
then there was no special influence exerted on the New Testa- 
ment writers to preserve them from error, they were in precisely 
the position of the writers of these apocryphal productions, and 
liable to the same errors. Indeed, when we remember that the 
apocryphal writers had the advantage of having the books of 
the New Testament before them, and that from the nature of 
the case they who would attempt such a task must have had as 
much intellectual culture as the simple and unlettered fishermen 
of Galilee, we would naturally expect a greater exemption from 
error in the apocryphal than in the canonical Scriptures. But 



292 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



what do we find to be the fact? Take for example the Gospe 
of the Nazarenes, which some learned men suppose to be alluded 
to by Paul in the epistle to the Galatians, and what do we find 
in it? Instead of the sweet child-like simplicity of the genuine 
gospels, we have all the preposterous absurdity and anile silliness 
that marked the Jewish mind at that period. We have it said 
that our Lord declared that his mother took him by a hair of his 
head and carried him to Mount Tabor ; that the rich man whc 
asked what he should do to inherit eternal life on receiving 
Christ's answer, scratched his head and was displeased ; that the 
mother of Christ was the Holy Ghost; that the Holy Ghost was 
waiting for Christ during the time of the prophets, and similar 
absurdities. In the gospel of our Saviours Infancy we have yet 
more absurd and insufferable puerilities. We are told of the 
swaddling clothes of the infant Jesus driving out devils from a 
possessed woman, in the shapes of crows and serpents ; of the 
water in which he was washed curing a leper ; of a young man 
changed into a mule by witchcraft who was restored by the simple 
word of Mary to Christ ; of Satan appearing in the form of a 
dragon and emitting fiery coals at the sight of Christ's swaddling 
cloth ; of the boy Jesus making clay birds which could fly, eat 
and drink; miraculously mending the bad carpentry of his 
father ; and changing his playmates into kids, with a great 
variety of silly stories equally absurd and incredible. Compare 
these wretched fables with the genuine gospels, and tell us what 
caused the amazing differences, if the theory of Mr. Morell be 
true? 

But we have also an epistle ascribed to Barnabas, which 
although thought by many not to be his work, is yet very ancient, 
reaching nearly if not quite to the apostolic age, and hence shar- 
ing the general influences which affected the apostolic writings, 
if we deny their plenary inspiration. Let us look at a few para- 
graphs from this alleged epistle of Barnabas. 

"Abraham received the mystery of three letters. For the 
Scripture says, that Abraham circumcised three hundred and 
eighteen men of his house. But what therefore was the mystery 
that was made known to him? Mark first the eighteen, and 
next the three hundred. For the numeral letters of ten and 
eight, are I H. And these denote Jesus. And because the cross 
was that by which we were to find grace, therefore he adds, three 
hundred ; the note of which is T (the figure of his cross). 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPT UP ES. 



293 



Wherefore by two letters, he signified Jesus, and by the third his 
cross." § 9. 

•'But why did Moses say i ye shall not eat of the swine, neither 
the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the crow, nor any fish that has not a 
scale upon him ?' I answer that in the spiritual sense, he com- 
prehended three doctrines. Now the sow he forbade them to eat; 
meaning thus much: thou shalt not join thyself to such persons 
as are like unto swine, who, whilst they live in pleasure, forget 
their God, but when any want pinches them, then they know the 
Lord ; as the sow when she is full, knows not her master, but 
when she is hungry, she makes a noise, and being again fed is 
silent. Neither, saith he, shalt thou eat the lamprey, nor the 
polypus, nor the cuttle-fish, that is, thou shalt not be like such men, 
who are altogether wicked and adjudged to death. For so these 
fishes are alone accursed, and wallow in the mire, nor swim as 
other fishes, but tumble in the dirt at the bottom of the deep. 
Neither shalt thou eat of the hyena, that is, be an adulterer ; because 
that creature every year changes its kind, and is sometimes male 
and sometimes female. For which cause, also, he justly hated 
the weasel, to the end that they should not be like such persons 
who commit wickedness with their mouths; because that animal 
conceives with its mouth." 

"Therefore David took aright the knowledge of his threefold 
command, saying in like manner: 'blessed is the man that hath 
not walked in the counsel of the ungodly,' (Ps. i. 1,) as the fishes 
before mentioned in the bottom of the deep in darkness ; nor stood 
in the way of sinners ; as they that seem to fear the Lord, but yet 
sin, as the sow. And hath not sat in the seat of the scorners, as 
those birds who sit and watch that they may devour. Here you 
have the law concerning meat fully set forth, and according to 
the true knowledge of it." § 10. 

"But why might they eat those that clave the hoof? because 
the righteous liveth in this present world, but his expectation is 
fixed upon the other." § 10. 

Compare these puerile conceits, and exploded fables with the 
high and manly views of Paul on the same subject, and tell us 
what makes the difference ? Why has the one fallen into scientific 
as well as exegetical errors, and the ; % ther not ? According to the 
verbal theory, the reason is plain, but according to the one under 
discussion, this is utterly inexplicable. The quotations from Bar- 
nabas, strike it with a double edge, for they prove .first, the pro- 



294 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



found and even superstitious reverence which the primitive church 
had for the very words of Scripture, as inspired receptacles of 
revealed truth, a thing denied by Mr. Morell : and they show in 
the second place, that men who were not of the number of these 
canonical writers, though their very companions and co-laborers, 
were yet liable to all the errors of their age ; a fact which proves 
that this remarkable exemption from error can only be accounted 
for by supposing precisely such an influence of the Holy Ghost, as 
this theory denies. 

Another fact which contradicts this theory, is, the admitted 
limitation of these higher phenomena of inspiration, to these fifty 
writers. 

If these phenomena be generically the same with the actings 
of the intuitional consciousness, or with a high degree of sanc- 
tiflcation, why have they appeared in so few? Surely if inspira- 
tion be only an intensification and clarification of the pure reason, 
we may naturally look for it wherever that reason has been largely 
developed, and directed to the subject of religion. Now it cannot 
for a moment be doubted that Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, 
had a larger development, and a more scientific culture of the in- 
tuitive faculty than Asaph and Amos, Mark and James. Why 
then, are not their writings on the subject of religion equally true 
and authoritative? And why have these phenomena ceased with 
these men ? By the terms of this new philosophy, the intuitional 
consciousness of the human race is constantly developing and 
working itself to a higher range and a clearer vision. Why then 
has it failed to produce these phenomena, which, according to this 
theory, are identical with its development? Bacon, Newton, and 
Kant had, if this theory of progressive development be true, ne- 
cessarily, a larger and clearer unfolding of this consciousness than 
some of these writers; why were not they as fully inspired? If 
they were, where is the proof of the fact, either in their claims, 
their writings, or their influence? If they were not, the theory 
breaks helplessly down. 

Another fact that conflicts with this theory, is, the wonderful 
ijeauty and power of these writings. 

Here are the compositions of plain unlettered men and women, 
which as mere literary productions, have stood peerless and unat- 
tainable, in their strange power to touch and move the human 
heart. It is an inexplicable fact to this theory, that a Deborah, an 
Amos and a Mary, have, whilst under the power of this high affla- 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



295 



tus, produced some of the finest poetic effusions in ancient litera- 
ture. But this fact, difficult as it is, gives way before another 
which is more hopelessly inexplicable. It is that mysterious power 
which these words possess. Even Coleridge, in his attempt to un- 
settle the common theory, confesses that the Bible meets him 
further down in his nature, and speaks deeper to his heart than 
any other book. This is a fact that has again and again been 
felt. There are times in a man's history, when these words seem 
to blaze with such a depth of significance, that we tremble with 
awe, or thrill with gladness, at the unutterable things that glow 
and stretch away behind them. They seem like apertures through 
which we see the awful light of eternity. This is not the fancy 
of a few heated enthusiasts, but the recorded testimony of some 
of the calmest, loftiest, and purest minds of our race. Nor is it a 
mere literary phenomenon, for it is felt by the CafTre woman in 
the bush, and the toiling artisan in the workshop, as deeply as by 
the mystic dreamer of Kubla Khan, or the lofty Jansenist of Port 
Royal. They all testify with one voice, that as they gaze upon 
these words, there are periods when they seem to open up a shaft 
of light, which at one time is all flashing with the brightness of 
Heaven, and at another, all red with the glare of Hell. How can 
this fact, as a mere psychological phenomenon, be explained? If 
it be true that Jehovah has in very deed enshrined himself in 
these wonderful words, unfolding a gleam of the awful Shekinah 
to the unveiled and disenchanted spirit, we can understand this 
strange and mysterious power. If these books be as some won- 
drous wind-harp, or some Memnonian sculpture, from whose depths 
the breath of God's mouth, and the light of God's presence evoke 
this strange melody, we can comprehend to some extent, the secret 
of its entrancing strains. But if, as this theory teaches, there is 
no such indwelling of the Godhead in these writings ; and no such 
breathing of God's Spirit through these words, this fact stands 
before us, in the phenomena of mind, an inscrutable and inex- 
plicable mystery. 

A kindred fact to these, is the amazing effect that these writings 
have had on human society. 

Without referring to the history of the past, it is sufficient to 
point to the map of the world, and advert to the fact, that 
wherever you find greatness, growth and power, civil rights, and 
civil liberty, national prosperity and national happiness, there you 
will find a free and open Bible j and wherever you find the Bible 



296 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



restrained or entirely absent, even though the institutions of Chris- 
tianity are existing and acting, there you will find in the same 
proportion the absence of these social and national characteristics. 
Mere natural causes cannot explain this fact. The same old and 
solemn river still flows past Memphis and Thebes ; the same sap- 
phire sky yet hangs over Babylon and Bagdad ; and the same tall 
mountains look down like giant watchers on the plains where the 
Persian, the Greek, the Roman and the Turk erected the gorgeous 
memorials of their majesty and might. But the glory has departed. 
And whither ? It is found precisely in those lands where the Bible 
goes freely and broadly forth. And though these lands should be 
but a misty isle in the ocean, or a continent sleeping but a few 
years since in the silence of a primeval forest, yet with an open 
Bible in their habitations, these hardy Anglo-Saxons shall wield the 
destinies of the world. Now if it be true, that these writings, like 
the Ark of God, contain the shrined Shekinah, the very light 
of Almightiness, we can understand their power, and marvel not 
that they have evoked such mighty results in human history, for 
we see that these results are to be referred to the Anglo-Saxon 
Bible, rather than to the Anglo-Saxon blood. But if not, we can- 
not see why other books, written by men in no apparent respect 
the inferiors of many of these, and discussing the same great 
truths, should yet produce an effect so circumscribed and shallow 
compared with them ; and we stand before this fact, bewildered 
and confounded in astonishment. 

Another objection to this theory is, that it destroys the authority 
of the Bible, and thus destroys its influence, and tends to defeat 
its great purpose in the world. 

We are aware that the argument from consequences is not al- 
ways a valid one, but neither is it always invalid. "You say," 
replied Rousseau to one of his antagonists, " that the truth can do 
no harm. I know it, and for that reason, do I know that your 
opinion is an error." Nor was the brilliant Frenchman wrong in 
this acute response. Truth can do no harm, but falsehood may ; 
and if we see that a position or theory inevitably tends to do 
harm, we may fairly urge this as, at least, a presumption of its 
error. 

If the Bible is not an inspired rule of faith and practice, we are, 
of course, not bound to believe and do what it enjoins, any further 
than we are to obey the writings of any other wise and good men. 
What restraint then have we for the masses ? What spell that 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



297 



can curb their wiid and lawless passions? If their blind reason- 
ings lead them to agiarianism, socialism, revolution or anarchy, 
what word of man shall be mighty enough to arrest them in their 
rush of ruin ? Must not the voice of reason be drowned in the 
roar Df revolution? 

Germany furnishes us a case exactly in point. Strauss, in his 
life of Jesus, labored most earnestly to inculcate essentially this 
theory, and succeeded in giving it a wide prevalence in all classes 
of society. He denied that the Bible was the inspired word of 
God, and its teachings authoritative. The dragon's teeth were 
thus sown broadcast over the land, the fell harvest soon showed 
its bristling array, in the terrible scenes of 1848. When these 
popular uprisings began to startle the world, the learned professor 
began to recoil from the consequences of his theory. He found 
that he had unchained the tiger, and sought to coax and wheedle 
him back to his cage. He therefore traversed the villages of his 
native Svvabia, striving to undo the dreadful work he had wrought 
in the minds of the peasantry. These efforts have been pub- 
lished in what he terms his Theologico-Political Discourses, and 
in them he thus addresses the peasantry. "It is not for you 
that I wrote the life of Jesus. Let this work alone, it will impart 
doubts which you have not now. You have better things to read. 
Study, especially, precepts like these : Blessed are the pure in 
heart ! Blessed are the merciful !" But who reasons most logi- 
cally, if this theory be true, the peasant or the philosopher? The 
peasant, undoubtedly ; for it would be hard to prove to him, that 
what is a truth to him, is a lie to his neighbor ; that he is bound 
by a book which does not bind the philosopher ; and that he is 
in duty bound to revere and obey a religion which the philoso- 
pher recommends only as a substitute for the police officer and the 
constable. Hence he claims the same freedom with the philoso- 
pher, and refuses to pinion himself with a politic falsehood. 

Nor is the sweep of this theory limited to the simple peasant. 
If the Bible be not an infallible standard of belief and practice, 
then the philosopher has no basis of certitude as to anything that 
is not a matter of direct sensation or consciousness. God, Heaven, 
Hell, Eternity, Judgment, Resurrection, and all the unseen and 
the spiritual, are shrouded in voiceless and terrible uncertainty. 
The state of facts declared by these writers of the Bible, may be 
the true one, but we have no more absolute certainty of it than 
we have of the opinions of Confucius, Zoroaster, Plato or Epicu- 



298 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



rus. These men may have been inspired, but we have no proof 
of the fact on which we can rely. And even if they were in- 
spired, that inspiration in their minds avails nothing to us, unless 
we are sure that we have a certain and reliable record of the 
truths perceived by them in this inspired state. They may have 
truly received the word from God, but this is of little avail to us, 
unless we know that they have as truly transmitted it to us. 
Hence, if this be all the inspiration they possessed, however valu- 
able it may have been to them, it is of little value to us, and can 
only serve to tantalize us with the knowledge that these few men 
have been favored with a light from heaven, whilst the rest of 
mankind have been left only to that amount of this light which 
they, in their imperfect and undirected judgment, have been able 
to transmit. We are yet without any distinct utterance on which 
we can rely to tell us what we must certainly believe, and what 
we must necessarily do. 

It is replied to this by Mr. Morell and the modern philosophy, 
that the only and the sufficient basis of certitude, is the dictates 
of the universal consciousness of the human race. We ask what 
are these dictates? Where are they recorded? Who are their 
reporters? And who shall tell us which reporter is the most trust- 
worthy? The old Egyptian and Chaldaic teachings were over- 
turned by Pythagoras ; he is set aside by the Porch and the 
Academy in their multitudinous ramifications ; they by the Gnos- 
tics and Neo-Platonists ; they by the Schoolmen ; they by the 
Cartesians; they by Leibnitz and Wolf : they by Locke and 
Hume ; they by Kant ; he by Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schleier- 
macher, Strauss, Cousin, &c. &c, and they by the next avatar 
of the philosophic spirit, the arrival of which has not yet been 
telegraphed. In this chase of phantoms, what shall we believe? 
May not the next morning newspaper that gives us the price of 
stocks and cotton, also inform us of the appearance of some new 
philosopher whose teachings shall supplant all his predecessors, 
and leave us bankrupt in our faith? What shall we trust? Jesus 
we know, and Paul we know, and can discover the truth if they 
have taught it. We also know that Augustine and Luther, and 
the great mass of theologians, have taught essentially the same 
things. If then the Bible be the standard of truth, w T e know what 
to believe ; if not, w r e are launched on a shoreless and fathomless 
ocean, without landmark, or pilot, or chart or compass, while the 
waters are covered with darkness. 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



299 



But if the general suffrage of the enlightened consciousness of 
the human race be, as this philosophy avers, the ultimate basis of 
certitude, and therefore the last tribunal of appeal, we can of 
course carry this question there for decision. If this basis be valid 
for other matters of opinion, much more must it be for this which 
is under discussion. It is alleged by this theory, that inspiration 
is nothing but the elevation and illumination of this intuitive con- 
sciousness to the perception of spiritual truth. Of course then, if 
there is any case which we may safely refer to this chosen tribu- 
nal, it is the present, an alleged phenomenon of its own nature. 
And if there is any expression of this consciousness on which we 
can rely, it is found in the prevailing opinions of the Christian 
Church, in the bosom of which these phenomena of inspiration 
are confessedly found. What then is the testimony of the Chris- 
tian consciousness on this point. Does it recognize these high 
functions which are alleged to belong to it ? We but record a 
notorious fact in ecclesiastical history, when we say that its re- 
sponse to this appeal is in direct and emphatic contradiction of the 
averments of this theory. It positively denies that among its 
phenomena are included those of inspiration. This question is 
not one that is sprung upon the consciousness of the Church, now 
for the first time, but one which has been before her in various 
forms for centuries. And although this precise form of a theory 
to be substituted for that of verbal inspiration may not have been 
previously presented, yet all that is essential to it has been before 
the Church for many generations, and received the most emphatic 
condemnation and rejection. Every student of the history of 
Christian doctrine knows, that from Theodore of Mopsuesta down 
to the last nine days' wonder in the Fatherland, those who have 
held any views denying the plenary, verbal inspiration of the 
Scriptures, have been regarded as heretics and enemies of the 
truth. The researches of such men as Lardner, Whitby, and 
Rudelbach, especially the latter, have established it beyond con- 
tradiction, that true or false, the verbal theory has ahvays been 
that of the Christian Church. Surely then, if there was ever a 
point on which the purified consciousness of humanity has pro- 
nounced, and on which its decisions can be ascertained, it is the 
one now before us. Hence, when philosophy appeals from the 
written word, to this collective consciousness, on a point so clearly 
within its jurisdiction, and so long before its consideration, the 
appellant must abide by ti e decisions of the chosen arbiter. Now 



300 



INSPIRATION Or THE SCRIPTURES. 



as the distinct affirmation of the Christian consciousness, for 
many generations is, that inspiration is not among its phenomena, 
we allege that, as an argument um ad hominem, this decision is 
absolutely fatal to the theory under discussion. 

If then this theory of inspiration is a mere arbitrary figment, 
invented to remove some difficulties that are more imaginary than 
real ; if it has been formec not only without reference to the facts 
to be explained by it, but in direct contradiction of them ; if it 
removes us from one difficulty by plunging us into others tenfold 
more embarrassing : if it relieves the reason of man at the expense 
of the righteousness of God ; if it takes from us our only lamp of 
guidance in the vale of tears, and then tells us to find the path to 
heaven by our own purblind vision, when false lights are gleam- 
ing and gliding all around us ; if it teaches that God has taken 
less care to ensure the accurate publication of his laws and am- 
nesties, than the most negligent and tyrannical government on 
earth has done of theirs ; if it teaches that he has required us to 
believe the truth under the most terrific penalties, and yet has 
made no certain provision that what is offered to our belief is the 
truth ; if it teaches that effects the most extraordinary have been 
produced by causes the most ordinary and inadequate ; if it de- 
stroys the reverence that men have for the Bible, neutralizes its 
authority over them, and leads them to neglect and disobey its 
injunctions, thus defeating the very end of its production, and 
charging its author with folly ; if it is ignored at the very tribunal 
to which it has carried its final appeal ; then we are at liberty to 
reject it as false, and cling to the honored faith of our fathers ; the 
faith that cheered them in sorrow, that nerved them in danger, 
and that upheld them in death, that this blessed Book is indeed 
the word of the living God, and that in listening to its wondrous 
tidings, we are listening to the voice of the Eternal and the 
Almighty, inasmuch as "all Scripture is given by the inspiration 
of God," and given because " holy men spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost." 

It is with joy then, that we find this last, and in some respects, 
most powerful effort to overturn our old and cherished faith, as 
empty and weak as those that have gone before it. Philosophy 
and human wisdom may neglect this light from Heaven, and walk 
by the sparks of their own kindling, but this light can never be 
put out, even though these proud wanderers should have it at 
God's hand to lie down at last in sorrow and gloom. 



INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



301 



Life lies before you, young man, all gleaming and flashing in 
he light of your early hopes, like a summer sea. But bright 
though it seem in the silvery sheen of its far-off beauty, it is a 
place where many a sunken rock and many a treacherous quick- 
sand have made shipwreck of immortal hopes. And calm though 
its polished surface may sleep, without a ripple or a shade, it shall 
yet be overhung to you by the darkness of the night, and the 
wildness of the tempest. And oh ! if in these lonely and perilous 
scenes of your voyage, you were left without a landmark or a 
beacon, how sad and fearful were your lot. But blessed be God ! 
you are not. Far up on the rock of ages, there streams a light 
from the Eternal Word, the light that David saw and rejoiced ; 
the light that Paul saw and took courage; the light that has 
guided the ten thousand times ten thousand, that have already 
reached the happy isles of the blest. There it stands, the Pharos 
of this dark and stormy scene, with a flame that was kindled in 
heaven, and that comes down to us reflected from many a glori- 
ous image of prophet, apostle and martyr. Many a rash and 
wicked spirit has sought to put out this light, and on the pinion 
of a reckless daring, has furiously dashed itself against it, but has 
only fallen stunned and blackened in the surf below. Many a 
storm of hate and fury, has dashed wildly against it, covering it 
for a time with spray, but when the fiercest shock has spent its 
rage, and the proud waves rolled all shivered and sullenly back, 
the beacon has still gleamed on high and clear above the raging 
waters. Another storm is now dashing against it ; and another 
cloud of mist is flung around it, but when these also have expend- 
ed their might, the rock and the beacon shall be unharmed still. 
"We have a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well 
that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, 
until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts." When 
this promised time shall have come, when the dappling dawn shall 
have broadened and brightened into the perfect day, then, and not 
until then, shall the light of this sure beacon pale before the bright- 
ness of that day, whose morning is Heaven, and whose noontide 
is eternity. But until then, in spite of the false lights that flash 
upon our track, and gleam fitfully from billow to billow, our steady 
gaze and our earnest heed shall be to this sure word of prophecy, 
and the motto we shall ever unfurl to the winds, shall be, " the 
Bible, the Bible, the light-house of the world." 



€jrt Mahxt nf CJrriHtiattif^ 



AS SHOW TO BE 



A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM OF FAITH AND PRACTICE. 
AND NOT A FORM IN TRANSITU TO A HIGHER 
AND MORE COMPLETE DEVELOPMENT OF 
THE RELIGIOUS IDEA. 



BY 

REV. JOHN MILLER, 

PHILADELPHIA, 



There is a tendency in modern science to the doctrine of de- 
velopments. Anatomists believe that a skull is a developed ver- 
tebra, and botanists that a flower is a developed leaf-bud ; and the 
tendencies of science might be expected to intrude upon religion. 

The tendency of science to find a development in religion is as- 
sisted by the fact that religion is developed. Heaven, and (if our 
ideas are realized) the Millennium, are developments of Christi- 
anity. They develop its facts, for heaven and the Millennium are 
developed facts of Christianity. They develop its knowledge, for 
now we see through a glass darkly, but in heaven face to face. 
They develop its methods, for they shall not teach every man his 
neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : 
for all shall know him from the least to the greatest. 

We are not blind therefore to acknowledged progress in religion. 
The infidel schemes we would oppose will sufficiently define them- 
selves in the progress of our discussion. 

Development may be of two kinds, in the inventions of man or 
in the revelations of God, and these two might adequately divide 
our subject. The " religious idea" might be man's idea, and then 
Christianity is in transitu from one mythology to another. Or 
the " religious idea" may be God's inspiration, and then Chris- 
tianity may be a step in transitu in the development of revealed 
religion. This is the division which we had first agreed upon, but 
it clears the way to another which is fuller, more easily remem- 
bered, and more strikingly in unison with facts in general. 

All possible developments are in three forms. 

First, there is a development of art : as for example, the steam- 
engine has been developed from the toy of Hero. 

Secondly, there is a development in nature : as for example, the 
oak is a development from the germ of the acorn. 

And thirdly, there is a development of science : as for example, 
the Copernican system has been developed from the spheres of 
the Greek astrologers. 

20 



306 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT JLND FINAL SYSTEM. 



Ea:h of these forms of development has been imagined by dif- 
ferent infidels as obtaining in Christianity. 

I. First, they have imagined a developed invention, and adopted 
the theory that Christianity is a myth developed and cultivated 
from the ancient fables. 

Whether it is a fable or no broadly, or as a general question, 
will not come up under this head, for that would be taking the 
work of all our colleagues. The whole circle of the "Evidences" 
would be contained under such a division ; nor if it be a fable, 
whether it is developed and cultivated, for that we would be per- 
fectly willing to acknowledge. What we are concerned in is the 
proof of the theory derived from the theory itself ; or the meeting 
of the idea that Christianity is a cultivated mythology, as it is 
rendered plausible by the likelihoods in the very idea of the devel- 
opments proposed. 

Now a skull is thought to be a developed vertebra from its like- 
ness to that out of which it is thought to be developed. A flower 
is thought to be a developed leaf-bud, because it is like a leaf- 
bud. It has its parts and properties. And the grand method of 
maintaining a development of faiths is, that Christianity is like its 
predecessors, and that we can see in Boodhism and the fables of 
the Greeks, the shapes and patterns out of which its principles 
have been derived. 

Let us pursue this method in the instance of the gospel. 

Suppose the question to be deliberately asked, how I know that 
Jehovah is better than Jupiter, or Christianity any different the- 
ology from the myths of ancient religion ? 

The first feeling is one of indignation. But part of this is un- 
questionably prejudice ; and let us place ourselves in an avenue 
of approach where as much of this as possible shall be done 
away, and where the classic veil that hides us from the past shall 
be penetrated, and we enter among the men and women of the 
old worship. 

Lst us go up a stieet of Pompeii. 

Here is a bakery. Across over the way is a drinking shop, and 
the steps worn by the feet of the inebriates. Above was an 
apothecary, and in his shop the pots and vials that he used in 
his craft. On the street are the ruts of the carriage-way, and 
m the yard of a house a well grooved by the rope as it rubbed 
incessantly on the marble twenty centuries ago. 

These sights break a spell ; and instead of the toga'd Latin, 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 307 



half fabulous like the books of his own religion, we see actual 
men — pictures and carved work and pans and lanterns, thrift and 
taste and poverty thoughts and frailties like our own. 

We go up the street, then, and on a corner lot is a temple to 
Jupiter. 

We see it in its home relation. The baker and the apothecary 
built it for a want like ours. And as we look at it in its actual 
intention through the Ides and Kalends of the year as a resort 
for the townspeople, and as a place to which tottering old men 
and widowed matrons went for the consolations of religion, it be- 
gins to steal over us as an arrangement like the others : here, if 
anywhere, we can indulge the skepticism that religion is a pro- 
gress, and the question actually presses, why is not here the leaf- 
bud ? Why are not here the likenesses on which philosophers 
rely? Why was not this a preparation? And why is not Chris- 
tianity, too, an achievement of the mind working itself clear 
toward a higher and more mature religion? 

Now it so happens that the objections you instantly propose, are 
the most startling analogies on which the suggestion could depend. 

1. Your first attitude is mere resistance. In the inert moment 
of hearing the plan, you are perfectly tranquil, and when you 
analyze your feelings, it is one of mere assurance. This skepti- 
cism does not ruffle you. You have not the slightest idea of its 
plausibleness. And if you had, a certain jealous terror would 
hurriedly close all the avenues to any infidel opinion. 

But unfortunately this is a family tendency. The religions of 
mankind deal in the profoundest confidences. The Mohammedan 
nourished in Islam, is awe-struck at the teachings of the Chris- 
tian. The Romanist in the shadow of the church, rejects with 
scorn the faith of the Reformers. And this temple in the street 
shows on its gorgeous front the intensity of the feeling that in- 
spired its architectural designs. 

See the columns. Observe the capitals how exquisitely they 
are wrought. 

The faculties of men are not stimulated without an object. And 
the patience of the labor shows a resoluteness of will and a 
warmth of principle and purpose unequalled in Christian lands. 

2. You may say theirs was an ignorant age. But how easily 
might the infidel contradict it. 

When we wish to polish our styles, or to frame the thinking of 
our universities uoon a generous model, we go back to the idola- 



308 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 



ters. We defer to them in every point. We leave Shakspeare and 
Milton, and take Homer. We leave Fox and Pitt and Chatham, and 
take Demosthenes. We study a dead language. We incur the re- 
proach of inutility to get back to the thinking of that early period. 

Our artists tell us that the "Apollo*' dug up within our own 
century is perfectly inimitable. And we who have no experience 
in the art, are constantly surprised at the coolness with which 
they consent to the opinion, that the antique is hardly to be at- 
tained to by any modern application. 

Here is an age then living upon the achievements of another. 
Our students ripen their minds by the pabulum of ancient wit 
And when Kant and Hegel are mouldering in their tombs, we 
have no reason to be sure that Plato will not still be safe, and 
wll not still be reaching to the centuries the volumes of his sense 
and eloquence. 

3. But the philosophers, you instantly reply, were the ancient 
skeptics, and it is a favorite method of Christianity to condemn 
the triples by the admission of the grave and learned. But how 
would it answer in the instance of Christianity herself? 

When the lighter literature of the time had floated off, Hume 
and Gibbon and the more learned of the German school, Descar- 
tes and Leibnitz, and in our own time Carlyle and even Macaulay 
might be gleaned from to undermine the gospel. And it might be 
said, See; whenever a mind rose above the level of the multitude, 
he descried the sophistries, and whereas a cultivated form might 
be less exposed to such a defection, Christianity would still furnish 
enough to give it the likeness of being a cultivated fable. 

The heathen are in the hand of enemies. The ancient books 
have been studied to brace up the gospel. Let our literature 
be committed to the skeptics, and what might they not glean from 
it of infidel confession. 

4. But you say, the vices of the heathen are the grave evidence 
against their system. Then there we encounter the vices of 
the Christians. Del Monte and Caesar Borgia and the laxer of 
the Popes would stand side by side with Apollo and the goddes- 
ses, And in the church herself the infamy of the cloisters 
would hold, for a cultivated religion, a proportionate grade with 
the obscenities of the temple. 

Seneca tells us,* vices were not a part of their religion. And 

* De Vita Beata, cli. 26, § 5-6. See also Karsten Phil. Yett. Reiiquie, voL 1, p. 
43 et seq. 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 309 



looking upon Christianity as she was, a future mythologue might 
find in her persecutions and bloody wars enough to characterize 
her as having a likeness with the idolaters. 

5. But you say Paganism is a perfect labyrinth. There is no 
order in its myths, and it is an intellectual impossibility to embrace 
it as a system. It has gods and demigods. We have hardly 
fancied one, before it is confounded with another. They trace 
themselves alike. We have hardly gotten an origin for Jove, be- 
fore it is laid claim to in the theology of Bacchus ; and in the 
endless confusion of traits and influences and clashings in the ar- 
rangement of their empire, wc find a practical confession that it 
is not a system to be believed. 

But, for a cultivated religion, there are some contrarieties with us. 

My neighbor near me conceives of Christ as a man. I conceive 
of him as a God. Let our writings go to a stranger, and you have 
no idea of the confusion they will cause. We will not pursue this 
subject. You can easily see how to a future antiquarian perse- 
verance and its opposite, eternal punishment and its opposite, re- 
generation in its different methods, Pelagianism and the doctrine 
of depravity, would present a chaos of belief impervious to any 
system. 

6. Your next attack is against the puerilities of the heathen. 
You say, their myths are so gross as to be hopelessly incredible, 
and there is a carnality about their worship in its images and 
bloody sacrifices, that renders it easy to dismiss it as monstrous 
and absurd. 

But now (with reverence be it spoken ; for we would bring 
out the fair weight of the infidel scheme) is there a due simplicity 
in the doctrine of the gospel ? 

What are we to think of the Trinity? What are we to think 
of atonement and a bloody crucifixion ? What are we to think 
of Jesus and an incarnation of the Holy One ? How are we to 
judge of miracles like that of Jonah or the one of Gadara; or of 
prophecies like this, " When Israel was a child then I loved him 
and called my son out of Egypt ?" What are we to think of 
morals where Jesus creates wine, or Moses licenses divorce and 
encourages polygamy ? 

The method of induction, and the whole sweep of the modern 
sciences, help in this species of skepticism. Men have gotten to 
expect simplicity, and to beat at the gates of the future with a 
satisfaction in nothing else. Nature when rifled of her secrets, 



310 CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 



gives them to us in simple laws, and men have grown to be confi- 
dent of her that she has not told us the reality till she sends it 
to us in a plain response, orderly and regular like her own designs. 

And if there be a God, plain, a lumen albus, without the color- 
ing of cross or Trinity, is it not likely that that is the idea, and that 
we are to stand yet on the basis of law, and to be judged by a sim- 
ple government according to the deeds done in the body ? 

This is fascinating. 

And remembering, moreover, that our cumbrous faith is a legacy 
from the days of our fathers, and that when we cross the sea, the 
Boodhist and the Mussulman have the same faith in their hereditary 
doctrines, we are considerably shaken, and the avatars of the East 
and the incarnation of our own divinity seem a sister company, 
and seem to waive their rights all of them before a simpler theism. 

Thus then we have in considerable order, and with a plainness 
that will be advantageous to the truth, a sketch of the reasoning 
on which this first scheme of development depends : we have a 
right in the outset to know what specifically is the point that the 
infidel values in the considerations that have been given. 

Here is a series of facts constituting a series of resemblances. 
Does he depend upon the facts, or does he depend upon the re- 
semblances ? 

1. He cannot depend upon the facts. 

1st. It is a harmless fact that Christians believe the gospel. 
That Boodhists believe and Mussulmans is the resemblance. 
That we believe is a harmless and nowise discreditable fact. 

2d. It is a harmless fact that the ignorant believe or the 
learned, as the case may be. The gospel offers itself to all, and 
that any believe is only a token that it fulfils its mission. 

3d. That the learned disbelieve is harmless. "Not many 
wise, not many mighty," is a text of Scripture. That Zeno 
and Socrates disbelieved is the analogy. That Gibbon disbelieved 
is in full consistency with the truth of Scripture. 

4th. It is a harmless fact that Christianity should be contami- 
nated with vice ; and, 

5th. That it should be confused with heresy ; for both these 
are consistent. That cannot, be charged against a system that 
would disprove it if it were not the case. If Christianity distinctly 
affirms that Christians will be wicked and Christendom vexed 
and divided, the fact free of the analogy would only be consistent 
if it was as it is found to be. 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 311 



6th. It is a harmless fact that the gospel is not simple. 
And this we place on the foundation that the infidel is deceived 
in his notion of a God. 
God is never simple. 

Simplicity has two lodging-places, a place in the truth and a 
place in the mind by which it is apprehended. The truth is 
always simple. But the mind from the feebleness of its powers 
prevents that simplicity from being manifest. 

To this category belongs the Deity. He is simple. And the 
Trinity makes him simple. But how it operates to complete the 
unity of the Godhead we are utterly unable to conceive. 

But can the infidel conceive other things? 

The feeling of plausibleness that started in your mind was 
due to the idea that a simplicity was just before you. 

The idea seemed easy. Give us only a soul, or according to 
Varro a simple spirit of the universe, and our idea is complete, 
for then we have a simple King, a rewarder and punisher of all 
our actions. 

This is your system. But why were the ancients perplexed 
by it ? 

You object to a Trinity, but how do you explain the mystery 
of the creation ? 

The Deity is infinite. The creation is finite. The creation is 
the history of the Deity. The creation had a beginning. The 
Deity had no beginning. An eternity, therefore, before he offered 
to create, he was without a government, and without an active 
history. 

This so perplexed the ancients that they deified matter, or at 
least denied the period of its creation, and held that it had existed 
from the eternity of God. 

Again, you object to a Redemption. But how do you simplify 
ordinary justice ? "Where are its punishments? Virtue is de- 
throned and vice elevated. Is this simple? 

The ancients were so pressed by it as to invent metempsychosis, 
and by the stages of a transmigration to bury in a cloud what 
they could not solve by an immediate government. But this is 
not simple. And if we are to have any expedient, why not take 
the good one, and if we have no King simple in act and imme- 
diate in purpose, why not take the one that- is revealed by Jesus 
Christ reconciling the world through the gospel? 

You are stumbled by the Incarnation. 



312 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 



But can you explain any of the subsistences of the creature? 

Why does that pillar stand? It stands by an energy residing 
in it of the Almighty. Dismiss that energy and it falls, and it 
falls so as to seem nothing but energy. Then actually what 
is it? The ancients solved the difficulty by inventing Pantheism. 
And can any one explain how a thing can be nothing in such a 
sense that it vanishes when energy is withdrawn, and yet be dis- 
tinguished in its essence from the essence of the energy itself? 

The infidel objects to Imputation. 

But can he account for sin ? 

The ancients invented Platonism. In laboring for a simple 
God they were embarrassed by the presence of calamity, and 
rather than ascribe pestilences and vices to the same divinity they 
invented two, and defended the simplicity of one by adding the 
complexity of another. 

Here then we have been miserably deceived. There is no 
fresh theism such as w T e imagined, but an old, exploded fantasy. 

And taking our Christianity, on which all nature looks down 
with evidence, which explains sin and accounts for pain and suf- 
fering, which arranges life, and takes up again the ravelled thread 
of justice and providential things, we are to compare it, not with 
reason or some simple form imprinted in its beauty on the soul, 
but with the ghastly and forbidding shapes of ancient and ex- 
ploded superstition. 

2. But next as to the resemblances : is not the resemblance of 
Christianity to so many mythologies an evidence that it is one 
of them? 

We confess that it is. 

If the Copernican system has been preceded by fifty astrono- 
mies, the prima facie evidence is, without waiting much for analo- 
gies, that it is false like the rest. If the world were to entertain 
a hundred metaphysics, and the last were now to be brought for- 
ward, the prima facie evidence would be that it would be only tem- 
porary. But here are some things obviously in our favor. 

First, such likenesses are inevitable. If man discovered a true 
metaphysics, its analogies would be in the nature of things. Map 
out all your consciousness, and the map would be dimmed, and 
dimmed by likeness. False systems would claim your facts, and 
did you do it by inspiration, analogies would confuse your map, 
and men could hardly receive from you a true philosophy. 

That which assails all truth can hardly be fatal to anything. 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 



313 



Take the Copernican system. It has all species of analogy 
with the plan of Tycho Brahe. 

Both considered motion. Both classified and connected motion. 
Both established periodicity : both calculated periods. Both advo- 
cated truth, however one had mixed it with ignorance and error. 
And yet are we to abandon Copernicus on the faith of the analo- 
gies? Both had mysteries. Boih had ignorant friends, and both 
learned enemies. And yet who believes in a transition? Who is 
waiting for another system to be found? and does not take Co- 
pernicus as a last revealer of those laws in the frame of nature? 

It is true, analogy is powerful. 

I am timorous about doubting Christ, but I cross the sea, and 
I find a Turk as timorous about questioning Mohammed. It 
impresses me. I go to a Boodhist, and ask him for a miracle. 
I go to a Christian, and ask him for a miracle, and they at this 
particular age are neither ready ; they point me to the past. I 
go to Plato, and he laughs at the temples ; I go to Hobbes and 
Spinoza, and they laugh at the churches, and this impresses me. 
The only question is, what are our arguments? Are they multi- 
plied enough? And are we able to heap them up sufficiently 
against the opposing likelihood ? 

Physicians tell us that jellies and concentrated essences are not 
good for the nourishment of the system. Food to be good must 
be coarse. Lions to be strong must hunt their prey. And the 
mind to be vigorous must not stumble upon truth, but dig for it in 
a period of study. 

So it is in regard to our probation. Error is an ore of truth, 
and analogy is the law that holds its ingredients together. It is 
healthy for us to forge out our faith. And though the " evi- 
dences" are literally of every sort, prophecy, miracle, fact and tes- 
timony, yet we are not to receive them like the devils, who believe 
and tremble, but like inquiring men ; and the difficulties that dis- 
turb shall be edifying in their influence on the mind. 

II. It is time, however, that we should notice the second species 
of development which is that of nature, that Christianity is a step 
in the onward development of something that exists in fact, but 
in a very immature condition. 

We can illustrate by facts in its own origin. Adam received the 
message, " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." 

This was the religion cf the time. But how germinal it was is 
seen in the fact that subsequent developments have entirely relieved 



314 CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 



it, and the very persons that received the message, are exalted 
higher than before their iniquity occurred. 

So of the protevangelium. " The seed of the woman shall bruise 
the serpent's head," was the gospel of its time. And Christians 
might be ready to confess that it imparted few ideas, and some 
of these imperfect and distorted in their reception by the people. 

The same is true of the system of Abraham. It noticed 
little a hereafter. It was crude and dark : and the apostles them- 
selves confessed that it was a bondage under the rudiments of the 
world. 

Now what are we to say of the like in Christianity 7 We are 
no judges. We are living in the system. The men of the time 
cannot detect the crudities of their own opinion. The argument 
from simplicity is wasted : for the simple threat u in the day thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," was a simpler information 
for practice, than all the light and all the precept of our superior 
religion. 

This is an interesting idea. The protevangelium, " The seed 
of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head" put Adam in a 
simpler state than us, for without the complexities of Christianity, 
he learned only that out of the sins that were beginning to reign, 
and out of the evils that were beginning to afflict him, the offspring 
of the woman was to appear for his deliverance. 

Now the theory may be advanced. Christianity is germinating 
yet. It is the mere embryo of a sublimer manifestation. And 
our zeal in considering it as perfect may only be the fondness of 
the misguided Hebrew who would rest in the shadows of the law, 
rather than embrace the substance of the gospel. 

It would seem a natural way of replying to this theory to take 
up the doctrines of the cross, and show that they are final in their 
nature. So under the head of invention we might have denied 
development, and showed that Christianity reached back from the 
beginning, and could'not historically have been derived from myths. 
But this, and more that we could have done in showing that myths 
were derived from Christianity, would have involved us in contro- 
versy, and called up a multitude of questions, that we could not 
have despatched in the limits of our lecture. 

We are driven, therefore, to a shorter method. 

We say, grant there may be a development. 

Literalists believe that Christ is personally to reign. It is a 
harmless doctrine in contrast with infidelity, and no one would 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 315 



implicate the two, lest pious persons should believe in the first 
and be harassed by connections with the other. But if Christ 
come, that is a developed Christianity. Personal interviews with 
men would develop our intelligence, and free intercourse for ages 
would bring out wonders, and fill, as it will be in heaven, all our 
minds with believing admiration. 

It is better therefore to meet the idea of development not with 
an iron-bound denial, but an appeal to the nature of things show- 
ing that the most glorious development of light must be only a 
kindling of the twilight of the gospel. 

Naturalists have imagined that the world was in a state of 
progress. They imagine the nebular hypothesis that all things 
existed originally in a state of vapor, and that by a series of 
changes, some of which have been calculated, central masses and 
concentric rings, and finally revolving planets have resulted from 
the principles of nature. 

Attributing to matter further powers to vivify and improve 
itself, they have skeptically imagined a progression by which 
germs and motions and finally plants and life have been succes- 
sively evolved from this ceaselessly improving materiality. 

Now this will illustrate the instance of religion. 

If matter be developed in the manner stated, it must either be 
by God or by a system in itself. If it be by God, then it must be 
truthfully, or if it be by matter, then eminently it must be truth- 
fully by some order. The vapor out of which the universe is to 
evolve must be singularly instinct with a truthfulness to its whole 
design. 

Now this we claim in respect to religion. If it is a develop- 
ment of a series of phenomena, these phenomena must be con- 
tinually facts. If a leaf-bud is to generate a flower it must be 
instinct with the flower at the beginning. If a chaos is to evolve 
a world it must be instinct with the world ; and so of religion. 
If it is a series of developments, whether they are of God or some- 
thing else, the moulds or patterns of the whole must be in it from 
the beginning. 

Now the doctrine of development carried to the undermining of 
Christianity would make Christianity singular among things. 

There is a certain order in growth. The solid parts are first 
attended to. The gneiss and granite of the hills have been laid, 
so we are to understand, before the marble. The spine and the 
blood-vessels appear in the earliest orders of the creatures ; the 



316 



CHEISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 



root and the leaf-stem, in the gigantic ferns. And so in religion 
the essential root, Christ reconciling the world by his death ap- 
pears in the earliest ova, if you prefer to speak so, of the Chris- 
tian religion. 

Then now another principle. Things develop themselves till 
their parts at last are thoroughly identified. The fossil megalo- 
saurus has a distinct eye and a distinct shoulder ; and so, rising in 
the scale, a lion or a man has distinct organs that have come at 
last to be identified, and in respect to which it is impossible to 
entertain a doubt however much the species- might be elevated. 
The stars revealed themselves to the Chaldees in the distinctest 
motions. Astronomy was in its crudest state, and yet some facts 
were settled. And if you ask me how, I answer by intuitive per- 
ception. The facts stared at them from the skies, and the mind 
seized on them as her own, and has retained them as her per- 
petual possession. We can illustrate by the system of Coper- 
nicus ; a thousand crudities had prevailed, but the facts finally 
fell into their places like type into a form, and now it would be 
just as impossible to shake the conviction of astronomers as the 
conviction of a child about his plainest verity. 

How much then can the infidel assail us, if he will grant us 
two facts, first, that as nature develops, her improvements sink 
steadily in structural importance, and therefore her prime things 
are present in the beginning ; and, secondly, that as she develops, 
her parts successively identify themselves, and that by discoveries 
of the mind as certain as if the whole were there? 

We pretermit, therefore, the argument that there will be no 
other revelation, and suffer the infidel to indulge the highest 
hopes of future light. We only say that the development at- 
tained already, binds him down to a sufficient gospel. 

The statement that Christ died and rose again, never can be 
developed into a doctrine that he never descended from the 
Father. The statement that he died for our sins according to 
the Scriptures, never can be developed into a naked Deism. The 
statement, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desper- 
ately wicked, never can be developed into the statement that it 
is as it was meant to be. And the statement that he that be- 
lieveth on Christ hath everlasting life, never can merge itself 
into some after-faith resting our hope upon mere obedience to the 
law. 

We pass on next to the third head. 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 317 



III. The third species of development is a development under 
which Christianity is regarded as a form in transitu to a higher 
development of religious knowledge. 

This is the species of Morell. 

Morell's metaphysics as a separate introduction to the case need 
not trouble us, for we can admit ihem all and still show its utter 
impracticability. 

This perhaps were the better way. 

It is the part of a logician to deny only what is necessary of an 
adversary's system. And as this, which is essentially German, is 
spreading among men, it is best perhaps to stand clear, and not 
let our argument depend upon anything fundamental in a favorite 
psychology. 

We may say a few things, however. 

First, we object to the very elements of Morell's system. The 
"logical consciousness," and " the intuitional consciousness," as an 
analysis of our thinking,* are a solecism. Logical conceptions are 
as much intuitional as the conceptions of their subject matter. Rea- 
soning is a series of intuitions ; and when we affirm the relation 
between truths we as much appeal to an intuitional power as when 
we see justice or see beauty in the facts around us. We quarrel, 
therefore, with the division ; but we would be sorry to implicate 
with that a belief in Christianity. 

Again, we object to a second step. Religion, we are told, in its 
essence is a feeling of dependence.! Now religion is a broad state. 
We might as well say it was patriotism or a motherly affection. 
We might, as well say it was giving of alms or shouldering a bur- 
den. We might as well say it was love or hatred. If we might 
narrow it down to any fact, we might call it knowledge. 

Knowledge, in its broadest sense, includes our tastes and the 
notitiee of conscience. What a blind man cannot see is part of 
our knowledge; and what a painter appreciates in beauty and 
proportion above an ordinary eye is part of his knowledge; and 
so also is our cognizance of light, and our appreciation of excel- 
lence of character. In this sense religiou's essence is in knowledge, 
if you will allow that term to be inseparable from one accompany- 
ing fact : I mean attendant emotion. 

So faith is a low stage of knowledge. Obedience springs from 
knowledge. Love and penitence flow from knowledge. " I have 
heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye 
* Philos. of Religion, Am. Ed. chs. 1 & 2. f lb. ch. 3. 



318 CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 



seeth thee. Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust \nd 
ashes." 

Again, we object strongly to the idea of revelation as a height- 
ened consciousness.* Morell in his apparently candid division of 
historic facts and conscious intuitions, ignores a third species of 
truth which does not come out either under the added head of 
'logical constructions.'! 'Logical constructions' he defines to be the 
formal stating of our material intuitions. Now there is something 
more than this. There are doctrinal revelations. Historic facts 
he alleges could be gotten by an eye-witness, and then nothing 
more would be necessary to write the Scriptures than a heightened 
conscious intuition. But there is a third thing required — doctri- 
nal fact. Who explained the historic fact? Who clustered about 
Christ a system of atoning life? Who told us whathe was? This 
is not history but exposition, and could appear no more upon the 
face of the crucifixion, than it could be stirred up within us by our 
interior consciousness. There is a tertium quid, therefore, that 
Morell has not noticed. His logical construction is a mere ex- 
pounding of our intuitions, and the doctrine of a Trinity could as 
poorly spring up in that way, as sights and odours without the in- 
strument of sense. 

Again, we object to the idea that inspiration depends upon piety.t 
and strange to say, this we refute consistently with the theory of 
Morell. 

Piety is but one intuition. 

There is an intuition of justice, an intuition of power, an intui- 
tion of truth, generally. Balaam had intuitions that were any- 
thing but intuitions of piety. Grant that inspiration were all 
intuition, there are a thousand intuitions that unite besides the 
intuition of moral excellence. If piety were all our intuition, the 
most pious men would be the most doctrinally intelligent. Abra- 
ham would be more doctrinally intelligent than we, and a pious 
slave necessarily more so than his master ; which is so far from 
being the case, that the most learned doctrinal disquisitions have 
been of those who had no piety at all. 

Again, we object to a new organon.§ Bacon's method is as old 
as the creation. It is like the brain, congenital. Adam used it 
in naming the beasts. The Baconian method is the instinctive 
organon of children. The office of Bacon, like a lecturer upon the 



* Philos. Relig. chs. 5 k 6. f lb. p. 211. % lb. ch. 6 et al. § lb. p. 201. 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 319 



brain, was to show the instrument, though the instrument existed 
since the earliest generalization. 

But though these things are serious as respects other errors, yet 
as to the doctrine of development we would concede them all. 

What does the skeptic argue for ? 1. Is it historic fact* that 
is to develop ? — that we concede, but the facts of the past cannot 
be altered by the facts of the future. 

2. Is it intuitional consciousness ?t What is that ? If Morell 
asserts that it is piety, we agree again, for piety is certainly to 
develop. "The wolf also shall dwell with the Iamb, and the 
leopard ehall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young 
lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." 

What is it though? Is it doctrinal intelligence? That also 
we acknowledge : and if it means actual informations, we claim 
the usual rules. Systems grow from the foundations upward. 
Two and two will be four in the highest regions of analysis. God 
will be in Christ reconciling the world to himself, when the high- 
est millennial light shall have dawned upon the mind. 

3. Nothing therefore is left to Morell but logical! development, 
which he confesses is the fruit of intuition. We ask nothing but 
that intuition shall really be intuitive, and settle upon truths a* 
truths that are possessed already in the system. The electrician 
for example, believes polarity, whatever discoveries may be added 
The astronomer has settled upon periods. TI13 mathematician 
as we have seen, is convinced of his arithmetic. And so give u? 
the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, and we will glad^ 
go on unto perfection. 

And it is interesting to see how little this view is affected by 
anything we concede to the psychologist. 
Give him his organon. 

If a new organon is discovered, it will improve religion. We 
agree that it will clear it. It will not add to its distinctive truths: 
though here we need not stickle with the infidel. His great 
attack is against the fundamentals of the faith, and these his 
organon would spare. The old organon has spared them in every 
science. 

So on the other hand, we are not afraid of the idea that if intui- 
tional and doctrinal religion are the same, and the first is identi- 
cal with piety, that as the intuitional improves, religion will again 
be benefited — if you please, developed — that is, cleared in the out- 
* Philos. Relig. p. 211. f lb- X lb- 



320 



CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 



line of its truth, and filled out in its doctrinal proportions ; for 
what is this asserting than that intelligence and piety united will 
see more of the truth than where there is less of either. We be- 
lieve intelligence and piety are to be revered. But if it is not so, 
that will be an excellent man who has them growing up in him 
proportionally together, and that will be a glorious age, when 
awakened light shall be one with extraordinary piety. 



€\}t dta:al Muml €mfonn nf Cjjrattarattj. 



BY 

EOBEKT J. BEECKINKIDGE, D.D.LL.D., 

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY 



i 



I. 



1. As far as we have any knowledge of the past history of our 
race, independently of the information derived from the volume com- 
monly called the Word of God, portions of that race have always 
been in possession of portions of that volume. In it are contained 
by far the most ancient records of mankind. It has preserved 
for us all that we know of the history of our race, during at 
least the earlier half of its supposed existence upon earth. In it 
alone are found any precise ideas of the origin of our race, or 
any clear and comprehensive statements of its general career and 
destiny. And it alone furnishes us with complete, categorical, 
and unalterable directions for the universal guidance of human 
conduct. For nearly eighteen centuries it has existed in its pres- 
ent form ; and the whole of it, as long as it has thus existed — and 
every part of it, as each part was successively produced, through 
succeeding generations, from the remotest antiquity — has been 
accepted by continually increasing numbers of the human race, 
as the Word of God. At present, it is so accepted by most civil- 
ized nations, and in the popular belief of the most enlightened 
half of the human family. 

2. The existence amongst men of a belief in the being of God, 
has been, perhaps, more general than any other human belief. 
In what manner it originated, and upon what grounds it has been 
so universally propagated, are questions upon which men have 
chosen to dispute ; but the fact itself does not admit of being dis- 
puted. Upon the hypothesis of what is called natural religion, 
most questions touching the origin and propagation of this belief, 
do indeed admit of being solved; for as soon as we allow that 
religion is natural to man, it follows that it is natural for him to 
believe in the objects about which religion essentially concerns 
itself, and therefore in God. Upon the hypothesis of revealed reli- 
gion, everything is clear at once ; since the creation of man by 
God, with a nature capable of receiving the knowledge of him 



324 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



and power to retain, even though it might deface that knowledge ; 
and then the communication of that knowledge by God to man ; 
explain in the clearest manner, the origin and permanence of a 
belief so remarkable. Upon any other hypothesis but one of 
these two, it seems extremely difficult, if not indeed utterly im- 
possible, to account for the existence of any idea of God in the 
minds of men — much less for the universal prevalence of a belief 
in his being, and our dependence on him, and accountability to 
him. The existence of the facts is of immense significance. Our 
ability to explain them, in some good degree, upon the ground of 
natural religion — as commonly so called — is a great step taken. 
Our ability to clear them up perfectly, upon the ground of revealed 
religion, is a far higher and more important step. Our inability to 
explain them at all, upon any other ground, seems to conclude 
the whole matter. It is under the full impression of this utter 
impotency of infidelity in all its forms, to explain the most com- 
mon and fundamental of all our religious ideas, and to account 
for the most universal of our religious beliefs — that passing over 
the great, but obscure domain of natural religion, we are allowed 
to come into the presence of a revealed God. 

3. The authenticity and the uncorrupted preservation of every 
part of this volume, are distinct questions, and of fundamental 
importance. They belong to the domain of another lecture in this 
course. Upon the first of those questions, it may be observed in 
general, that the Bible, though in many important senses a single 
book, is in reality made up of many separate books — each one of 
which is in fact, and was historically, a distinct treatise. These 
treatises were composed by a considerable number of different 
persons, and many centuries elapsed between the composition 
of the first and the last of them. Who wrote these various 
treatises — at what times and under what circumstances — how 
and when they were gathered successively together — distributed 
under certain general classifications — and at last brought into the 
condition of a single volume, containing in absolute completeness 
all the separate parts, and containing nothing else ; — all these are 
questions, which, so far as they are not settled by the writers 
themselves, and by the contents of their treatises, have been 
completely determined by discussions, which, during many centu- 
ries, have attended these oracles across the track of ages. Upon 
the second of the two questions embraced under this head, it may 
also be stated, in general, that with regard to the text of the Old 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE ?F CHRISTIANITY. 



325 



Testament scriptures, the state of the whole matter as between 
the Jews and the Christians; and with regard to the text of the 
New Testament, the state of the whole matter as between the 
various Christian sects from the very beginning; and with regard 
to the text of both testaments, the state of the whole matter as 
between the receivers and the rejecters of divine revelation — has 
put the question of the purity of the entire text, and its perfect 
preservation, in a light extraordinarily clear — and has accumu- 
lated an amount of evidence, decisive, out of all comparison touch- 
ing any other book in the world. So far as these points are im- 
portant to the present discussion, they must be accepted as set- 
tled ; and the more numerous and the more difficult they may be 
supposed to have been, the more important do they become, after 
being successfully determined, to the argument which is to 
follow. 

4. The authority of this book is a question not necessarily con- 
nected with either of the foregoing questions ; though it is usually 
treated as if it were absolutely dependent on both of them. To 
human reason, its authority might, in many respects, be absolute, 
even if we knew nothing of its authors — its origin or its preser- 
vation ; for even in that case it might obviously contain the most 
precious truth — set in the clearest light. In the same manner and 
upon similar conditions, its moral influence might be decisive, so 
far as the influence of what is good and what is beautiful is capa- 
ble, of itself, of leading captive such souls as ours. And it is 
undeniable that the gentler, the purer, and the higher classes of 
human spirits are deeply and permanently affected by the con- 
tents of this marvellous book, contemplated only in the manner 
just stated, in proportion as those contents become familiar to 
them. Upon such grounds the Christian may well challenge the 
attention, and claim the reverence of mankind — for a volume ca- 
pable of producing such effects, in such a manner: but they are 
so much lower than other grounds on which its authority is as- 
serted, that he does not much insist on these. It is upon the 
ground of God's absolute authority, that we claim for this book 
the universal reception and obedience of mankind. We say God 
has spoken it. It is the direct product of God's intelligence — the 
immediate utterance of God's authority : as completely so as if 
we saw and heard him. Its truth is thus ascertained with an in- 
finite certainty, and proclaimed with an infinite authority : and 
men are, therefore, under an infinite obligation to know, to believe, 



326 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



and to obey it. Our faith stands, not in the wisdom of men, but 
in the power of God. God is infinitely true, and infinitely ex- 
alted ; so that his communications to us have an infinite au- 
thority. 

5. Still further. It is by the inspiration and the revelation of 
God, that the contents of this volume are placed on grounds upon 
which it claims to be an infallible guide to the faith and obedience 
of men : just as the veracity and the majesty of God are the final 
basis of its reception. Precisely as our infinite obligation to re- 
ceive it at all rests on the latter basis — so our infinite security in 
receiving it as an infallible guide rests on the former : the manner 
of its being ascertained to us, as the word of God, being the chief 
element in one case, and the fact that it is his word in the other. 
I use both words, inspiration and revelation — for, to me, they con- 
vey ideas substantially distinct — yet both of them indispensable. 
Amongst things known, or that might be known, God has inspired 
men to record here, such as we are to receive with a divine faith : 
and amongst things unknown, and incapable of being known, by 
means merely human, God has revealed some to his servants, and 
inspired them to record them, as thus revealed. Thus revealed 
and thus inspired, divine in its infinite sanctions, and divine in its 
infinite certainty, the word of God comes to us with the simple 
and sublime utterance — believe and live ! A ground and a rule 
at once of absolute assurance and absolute completeness in all 
our beliefs and all our obedience, bestowed on us by God. All 
that we knew, and all that of ourselves we could know, touching 
our duty and our destiny, has been set before us in a new and a 
clear light, and with divine authority; while that which, of our- 
selves, we never could have known, is communicated to us by 
God, as to its matter with divine authority, and as to its manner 
with divine certainty. Those ultimate truths upon which all our 
duties rest — many of which as applicable to our fallen condition 
we had never known, and many others, in our blindness and per- 
verseness, had greatly obscured — are cleared up with a light from 
heaven itself; and then between every one and all the duties 
which flow from it, the authority of God is interposed — thus 
doubly confirming, establishing, and enforcing all. 

6. Upon the supposition that men are not naturally corrupt, 
averse to what is spiritually good, and incredulous of what is 
spiritually true, it is not possible to conceive that they should 
avoid the immediate recognition and joyful reception of such a 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHKISTIANITT. 327 

communication from God. Yet we see that they everywhere 
resist, evade, pervert and reject it. It is needful incessantly, not 
only to instruct them in the faith it reveals, and the duties it 
enforces — and to recall their forgetful thoughts to the hopes it in- 
spires and the ruin it denounces ; but even to array before them 
the proofs that a message has reached them from above. Of this 
last description is the particular duty required of me, at this time ; 
and all these preliminary statements, are designed to open the 
way, and advance us upon a clear and firm position, for its dis- 
charge. The question assigned to me, in the programme of this 
course of lectures, involves a most important and difficult portion 
of the proofs to which I have just alluded. What is the nature 
and amount of the evidence afforded us, entirely or mainly, by the 
Bible itself, that it is the Word of God, in the sense of all the 
statements I have hitherto made? In what manner can we 
deduce this grand conclusion from considerations drawn from the 
contemplation of the contents of the Bible, considered absolutely 
— or considered relatively to all we know of God, of the universe, 
and of ourselves? What, in short, is the general nature of that 
proof for the divine authority of the Scriptures, commonly, 
though somewhat vaguely called, the internal evidence? In 
treating this great point I shall omit many things which will be 
found in most publications which expressly discuss the subject ; 
insert some, which, as far as I know, have been generally over- 
looked ; and distribute the whole in such an order, as appears to 
me to give to each separate consideration its just weight — and to 
the whole, taken together, the force of a connected argument. 
Of course, nothing can be amplified in such a performance as 
this ; and the whole can be considered only an outline — which 
ought to be complete, so far as its own general conception ex- 
tends, but every part of which is capable of indefinite expansion 
and illustration. 

II. 

1. They tell us, on the threshold, that it is not competent for 
us to prove that God has spoken to us — much less to prove this 
by any considerations connected with the message itself— until we 
have first proved that God exists ; and, moreover, that we must 
prove this latter point, not only previously to, but independently of, 
the former. I could have wished that a separate lecture on the 



828 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



being and attributes of God had formed a part of this course ; 
not only as by this means greater completeness would have been 
given to the whole ; but especially because, in our day, there is a 
growing infidelity, much of which wickedly baptizes itself into 
the name of Christ, the fundamental error of which attacks the 
separate, personal existence of God. As there is none, I may 
the more properly clear this particular objection — though avoid- 
ing, as I needs must, the general argument. To that end, sup- 
pose I were to make the same challenge to an argument designed 
to prove from the work of creation, that the universe has a divine 
author : and demand that the existence of God, be first and in- 
dependently proved — before any one shall attempt to prove, that 
all created things are his handy-work ? Suppose, again, I should 
interpose a similar challenge, to an argument purporting to prove 
the existence of God, as the ruler of the universe — or the judge 
and final re warder of men, or their merciful benefactor — either 
from considerations drawn from the general order of nature, or 
the universal course of providence, or the adaptation of man to 
the universe? Is it not obvious that the objection applies in the 
same manner, and nearly to the same extent, in one case as in 
another? They first deny that we can prove the existence of 
God by any argument, a priori. Independently of that, there is 
his work within us ; and this also they deny. Independently of 
these two, there is no way in which we can know anything of 
God, except by the external manifestations he makes of himself. 
If he had made but one kind of external manifestation of him- 
self — that would be a way, whether of works, or providence, or 
word, to know him : but if he makes many external manifesta- 
tions of himself, each is a way as real as any other, and to those 
capable of comprehending it, as conclusive, both that he is, and 
what he is. It might just as well be said that the course of 
providence affords no proof of the being of God, but only an 
elucidation of his character, after his being had been previously 
and independently proved. And the same thing might be said 
of the works of God. We have no more idea — perhaps not so 
much — how God ought to make a world, or how he ought to 
govern it — than how he ought to speak to it. In this case, there- 
fore, the word of God may be as real and as legitimate a source 
of proof of his existence, as either his works or his providence 
can be: since it is just as certain that if God has spoken, there 
is a God, as it is that if God creates, or God rules, there is a God : 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 329 



and it cannot be pretended that it is more difficult to deduce any- 
thing whatever concerning God, from a full revelation of himself 
by words, than by works, or by providence. It is very manifest 
that a demand that we shall prove the existence of God, previous 
to and independent of any particular manifestation of himself — ■ 
might be made with equal propriety of every successive and every 
conceivable manifestation of himself : the end of which is, that 
in proving God's existence, we must be deprived of all the mani- 
festations of that existence — that is, in effect, of all the sources 
of knowledge of his existence — until the existence itself is first 
proved. This is a round-about, and very silly way to atheism. 
For let it be considered, that so far as we are concerned, it is the 
very same thing to say, there is no God at all, as to say God 
has made no manifestation of himself to us. And again, upon 
the supposition of our own intelligent existence, which cannot 
well be denied, it is impossible for us to conceive, that God should 
not manifest himself to us, if he exists at all : since we know 
nothing more certainly than that activity is an attribute of all 
existence that rises above the condition of inert matter ; and that 
it becomes more intense, more exalted, and more comprehensive, 
with the increasing dignity and power of the existence itself : so 
that the non-manifestation, to intelligent existences, of an in- 
finite, almighty, and all-pervading activity, is an inconceivable 
absurdity. And still further, upon the supposition of our having 
any certain knowledge of anything whatever, which cannot well 
be denied ; the probability at once becomes violent in favor of 
the existence, and by consequence the manifestation of God. 
For the most certain thing known to us, is that we do not in- 
dividually occupy the entire universe — and that exterior to our- 
self, there is much beside, and independent of us. It is impossi- 
ble, in the nature of the case, for us to know, that in that uni- 
verse exterior to us, one of the things may not be God : so that 
the non-existence of God is a proposition, which, even if it were 
true, is wholly incapable of being proved. In such a state of the 
question — even supposing the probabilities to be capable of being 
exactly balanced — when considered a priori, which is by no means 
the case — the very slightest presumption which could arise in 
favor of that which may be proved, at once inclines the scale 
against that which in its own nature cannot be proved. And, 
therefore, as there is an utter impossibility of proving the non- 
existence of God, and very many methods of rendering the fact 



330 THE INTERNAL EVIDEJSCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



of his existence probable, there would, in the case supposed, 
arise immediately the violent probability already stated. For the 
purposes of the present argiment, therefore, there is manifestly 
no such necessity, as that which is so constantly urged by in- 
fidels, and so generally conceded by Christians : a demand on one 
side and a concession on the other, equally absurd, and in their 
result atheistical. For us, let it be supposed, there is a God : — then 
the question would be, is this his word ? Or let it be supposed, 
for the moment, undetermined whether there is a God or not : — 
then the question would be in su;h a position that any proof that 
this is the word of a God, would in like manner prove that there 
must be a God. Either way, the question remains the same — do 
these Scriptures commend themselves to us as a revelation from 
an infinite, eternal, and unchangeable being? If they do not, 
there may still be such a being. If they do, there must, of neces- 
sity, so far as we are concerned, be such a being. 

2. Upon the supposition that there is any God at all, there is no 
antecedent improbability that he would make a revelation of him- 
self to his rational creatures. On the contrary, as every manifes- 
tation of himself is in some sort a revelation of himself, and it 
has already been shown that it is inconceivable that he and 
intelligent creatures should exist together without his making 
manifestations of himself to them ; the question would naturally 
be, rather as to the manner and extent, than the fact of a divine 
revelation, taking the word in its largest sense. In that sense nat- 
ural religion, as it is conceived of even by those who reject revealed 
religion, is an exalted revelation of God. But when we consider 
the weakness and blindness of our faculties, and the deadness of 
our moral perceptions, in our present condition, estimating that 
condition alike by the general history of our race, and the inward 
experience of each individual person ; it is, perhaps, more rational 
to conclude that the great truths and the profound ideas with 
which natural religion furnishes us, are more probably the grand 
outlines which the race has preserved of an outward and primeval 
revelation, than the discoveries we have made of God, in any 
subordinate manner, by means of any other kind of manifestation 
of himself. If to this we add the extraordinary depth and power 
of our religious nature, even in its most perverted state — and the 
longing after God, — even false gods — which constitutes the most 
distinctive peculiarity of man ; we cannot easily suppose that 
great violence is done to the character of God by presuming that 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 331 



just in such a state of case, there is an infinite probability that 
he both could and would speak words of instruction, and warning", 
and comfort to his children — erring-, and yet striving to know 
him. Moreover, we are to remember, that even upon the suppo- 
sition of atheism, we are not delivered from the violent proba- 
bility of existing in a future state, and the certainty that so exist- 
ing we may be eternally degraded and miserable. For atheism 
being supposed, it is nevertheless certain that we exist here — 
though no God exists ; and it is equally certain, that our race, 
taken as a whole, is both degraded and miserable — we ourselves 
being judges. It is, therefore, not only impossible to show that 
we will not exist hereafter, but it is infinitely probable that we 
shall — whether there is any God or not ; and it is, also, absolutely 
certain, that so existing, we may be eternally undone. Seeing 
all this to be so — if we will now suppose that there is a God — an 
immense probability immediately arises, that he cannot look with 
indifference upon such a posture of affairs. If we pass into the 
domain of the great truths of natural religion, the presumption be- 
comes overpowering. And after we have possessed ourselves of such 
ideas of God, of ourselves, and of all things relating both to him and 
to ourselves, as the Bible delivers to us — it being, for this argument, 
perfectly immaterial where the Bible got those ideas ; the human 
mind cannot well resist the conviction, that such a God, in such a 
contingency, will interpose effectually. I presume, it will hardly 
be denied, that a perfect and permanent revelation is a possible, 
and might be an effectual mode of interposition. It is that mode 
which purports to have been adopted : it is that which — to say 
no more, the human mind has rested on — as not only probable, 
but actual. From that point of view, this is the highest testi- 
mony which is capable of being given. It is the testimony of 
human reason — I may add of human nature — to the antecedent 
probability of a divine revelation. 

3. Let us approach more nearly to this wondrous book, and 
observe in a somewhat general way what its effects upon the 
human race have been, and what it is in itself. It has made the 
circuit of the world. Human society, in every stage of develop- 
ment, under every form of administration, and composed of every 
race of men, has been exhibited to us, with and without the 
knowledge which this book imparts, with and without the influ- 
ence it exerts. The results which have been reached on the one 
hand and on the other, involve the entire mass of human experi- 



332 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE 2¥ CHRISTIANITY. 



ence. From the depths of an unkncwn antiquity its strange ac- 
cents become audible to man ; and along the entire course of all 
the generations as they pass, those accents have never been hushed. 
As an element in the destiny of man, nothing else is more capable 
of being estimated. Undeniably the influence it has exerted has 
been immense, and most beneficent. Undeniably that influence 
has been immense and beneficent, in proportion as it has been 
simple, absolute and undisturbed. The institutions of Moses have 
more deeply impressed the human race, than all other institutions 
except those of Christ ; and the doctrine and precepts which Moses 
as the servant, and Christ as the Son of God, have delivered to 
men, are beyond all doubt the most efficacious and the most benign 
inheritance which man has received. Peace and freedom, and 
knowledge and civilization, have flourished the most under the 
shadow of those institutions ; and all that is true, and beautiful, 
and good has sprung up the most profusely with that doctrine and 
those precepts. This day, after a struggle so protracted and so 
vehement — if we will estimate the results of so many centuries 
and so many conflicts, in their broadest aspect, we shall behold 
these marvellous oracles sustaining and adorning every institution 
and every attainment that blesses the earth most richly ; we shall 
find them affording the chief solace to man under all that crushes 
and degrades him ; and we shall see them utterly banished or 
utterly perverted, only where man has lost all hope, or is strug- 
gling with despair. This is the great conclusion ; and it is one 
which cannot be overlooked in any discussion of the origin and 
authority of this book. But if we will consider more particularly 
certain remarkable details, the light thrown upon the present argu- 
ment will appear oiVy the more surprising. As, one by one, the 
portions of this volume were bestowed upon man, each in its turn 
was efficacious to produce the particular effect intended by it; — • 
and then capable, also, of entering into the general mass that 
went before or that followed after, and of uniting with it in the 
production of new and more general effects ; and this process, 
everywhere else unprecedented, was enacted very many times, 
through very many centuries. Again, as each part was added, 
the clearness, the abundance, and the overwhelming force of the 
external evidence, with which it was marshalled in its progress 
from heaven, bore a remarkable proportion to the amount of the 
livelyorac.es already existing ; that evidence being immense in 
proportion as the portions of the Bible existing were few, and 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



333 



gradually diminishing as the portions gradually accumulated; 
until the whole was complete, and extraordinary manifestations 
of God almost ceased with the last revelation from God. More 
than that, they who received these communications from God, 
with simple faith, as they were successively bestowed on them, 
found the smallest portions of them sufficient as a means of grace 
and salvation, while no more existed for them : but when the 
whole had been completed, and the very uttermost part had been 
bestowed on them, who had received all the rest, and had found 
the smallest part sufficient — that glorious whole, became forthwith 
a sealed book in the matter of grace and salvation to those who 
rejected and crucified the giver of it all ! Thus in the very mode 
of its production we are warned, that these very internal evi- 
dences which we seek, are for us, the grand and enduring proof; 
and that there is a power connected in some mysterious manner 
with the oracle itself, which being found gives vitality to all, or 
being lost leaves behind only such influences as belong to the 
truth of itself. 

4. As we enter somewhat more into the contents of the Scrip- 
tures, seeking for proof of their origin, we are struck at once with 
the miraculous character of the pretensions everywhere set up 
throughout the whole volume, and the multiplied forms in which 
a divine power is claimed to be exercised. There is one aspect in 
which this whole department of proof constitutes the subject of 
another lecture. The reality of the working of miracles, as a fact 
historically proved, together with the significance of that fact, and 
its conclusive value in establishing the divine mission of those 
who performed them, and by consequence, the divine truth of 
their message. All that falls into another discourse. But there 
is another aspect of the subject which appertains to this argument. 
Upon the supposition, that a divine revelation is made, the most 
obvious proof of the divine mission of him who makes it is, that 
he should work miracles ; as, indeed, the Scripture declares that 
" signs and wonders and mighty deeds" are the appropriate evi- 
dence of a messenger from God. Now what we have to notice is, 
how from the beginning, this great necessity is silently accepted 
by the writers of holy Scripture — and how abounding is the proof 
thus furnished by them, that, of a truth, God was with them — 
with them, too, in this divine plenitude, not merely as using this 
miraculous power as a general proof, but in the very method of 
its use, illustrating a? well the nature and object as the reality 



334 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



of their mission. So remarkable and so comprehensive is this 
miraculous method, that every attribute of God. and every one 
of his revealed purposes, and multitudes of the most precious 
truths taught to us, might be set in a clear light, and distinctly 
enforced by the miracles recorded in his holy word ; so that be- 
sides their value as divine interpositions for a collateral but fun- 
damental end, they constitute besides, a full revelation of himself. 
And again, a careful consideration will show, that all the miracles 
recorded in the Scriptures have a general bearing upon the great 
scope of the Scriptures themselves, and are in unison with the grand 
conception running through them all. They are all miracles sub- 
ordinate to one stupendous miracle, most glorious of all — the mir- 
acle of God incarnate to save sinners ! And in this manner they 
constitute a divine and perpetual commentary upon the plan of 
salvation. Now upon the supposition of no God, and by conse- 
quence no revelation, I would fain know how these glorious ideas, 
in this exalted concatenation, and marvellous fulness and famil- 
iarity, get into the minds of these particular men, and no other 
men in the universe? And upon the supposition of a God, and 
an attempt to test the claims of a supposed revelation upon its 
own subject matter, I would fain know how such things are pos- 
sible to a succession of minds left to their ordinary operations ? 

5. Next, perhaps, to what has just been suggested, the most 
obvious peculiarity of the Bible is the confident claim of its wri- 
ters to the possession of prophetic knowledge. This subject, in 
the fundamental nature of it, constitutes, like the subject of mir- 
acles, the field of a separate lecture in this course; that is, the 
demonstration of the fact, that the Scriptures abound with true 
prophecies, and the illustration and significance and value of 
that fact, in establishing their divine origin. In their most gen- 
eral bearing even, the argument from miracles, and that from 
prophecy, belong to the general subject of internal evidence ; but 
their full and separate treatment, precludes the propriety in rela- 
tion to the latter, as I have before stated in regard to the former, 
of anything more than an incidental notice here. Considered in 
this manner, the whole subject of prophecy as it presents itself 
throughout the Scriptures, and as it is interwoven with almost 
every portion of them, gives to them a character most striking 
and exalted. As it is impossible for us to conceive how the future 
can develop itself before our unaided faculties in a manner simi- 
ar to that in which the past is present to our minds ; so it is 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



335 



equally inconceivable how we could entirely conceal the past as 
the whole future is concealed, so as to exhibit the same ignorance 
of all we do know, as of all we do not know. But the cognitions 
of God, as to all the future and all the past, are precisely of the 
same nature. And, therefore, while that fact establishes his om- 
niscience, and by consequence his Godhead, it renders it incon- 
ceivable to us, that he should converse freely and familiarly with 
us, and not exhibit, in general, the same familiarity with all the 
future, as with all the past. As far as we can comprehend, this 
is one of the exigencies of an extended revelation from God — one 
of its absolute conditions. And we find the writers of the Bible 
accepting in its fulness this controlling truth ; and the inherent 
power of it is exhibited throughout its pages. Not to insist only 
on their express prophecies, of which the number is so great, and 
the character so remarkable, all that they say, and all that they 
do, is said and done as fully in the sense of what is to come as 
in the sense of what is already gone. It is to be observed, at the 
same time, that all this sublime familiarity with all that is in pro- 
found darkness to the most exalted human intelligence, is exhib- 
ited in such a manner as neither to take away the contingency of 
second causes, nor to interfere with the freedom of human actions, 
nor to put it in the power of devils or wicked men to defeat what is 
declared beforehand, nor to diminish the grounds or the necessity 
of a perpetual faith on the part of the children of God. And we 
must add, that the whole compass of this prophetic intelligence, 
which pervades the Scriptures, whether it manifests itself in direct 
predictions, or whether it animates the types, and symbols, and 
ceremonies, or whether it impregnates the general current of the 
divine word, all terminates in the same ruling conception and all 
struggles towards the same infinite object. Salvation for lost sin- 
ners, and the person, the work, and the glory of their divine Re- 
deemer — these are the ideas which control all the rest. Surely, in 
the general compass and intimate structure of the Scriptures, con- 
sidered from this point of view, there is a depth of knowledge of 
that which man knows not, and there is an awful skill in the 
manner of its use, and there is, at once, an infinite breadth and 
an intense concentration of superhuman conceptions to a super- 
human end, the whole of which is utterly beyond anything of 
which we feel ourselves to be capable. It is the high and fair, as 
well as the irresistible conclusion of human reason, that this is 
not our work. 



336 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



6. There is another and a distinct mode in which the vast in- 
telligence which pervades the Bible is so manifested, that from 
the successive points reached by the human race, it may be sub- 
jected to an estimate more and more rigorous. What is here 
alluded to will be clearly perceived from this statement, namely, 
that the generil tenor of the Bible, as well as all its special asser- 
tions, exactly accord with what the profoundest learning shows 
to be the actual state of the universe, as well as with what the 
deepest and largest experience establishes, as the actual course 
of nature. The sum of all human experience as to the results 
of all human conduct, may be found better expressed in many 
of the earliest portions of this book, than we are able to express 
them now, after so many additional centuries 'of progress and 
observation ; and the results of all knowledge, in every depart- 
ment of our researches into the state of the universe, are assumed 
as already clear and known, thousands of years before our re- 
searches commenced. Whoever wrote this book, knew more 
than we know now on these mysterious subjects, and knew it dis- 
tinctly, when we knew nothing. And they have used their 
surprising knowledge in such a manner, that we are only able to 
perceive they had it, as we ourselves gradually attain some in- 
sight into the same vast subjects ; and they have uttered it in 
that form which seems to imply continually, and which indeed 
very often openly declares, that it is not their personal cognitions 
which they are uttering, but the intimations of a divine intelli- 
gence, the whole extent of which is not comprehended by them- 
selves. All this is infinitely remarkable. And yet it will be most 
deeply felt to be true by those who are the most conversant with 
the progress of human knowledge, taken in its very widest sense. 
In the whole circle of the sciences, every department of human 
investigation, in its first stages, has been alleged to contain posi- 
tive evidence of the mistakes or misstatements of the Bible; and 
the instances are not rare, in which this precocious rejoicing 
against the truth, has been met by unhappy attempts on the part 
of the friends of God's word, to make it accord with the false 
teachings of infidel and pretentious philosophy. In the end, 
when patient research had elicited the w 7 hole truth, and calm 
reason had reduced all the results to their true order and value, 
the ignorant infidel was found to have perverted nature, and the 
ignorant Christian to have misconstrued God ; and without one 
single exception, the final and perfect conclusion has been to con- 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 337 



firm and exalt the all-pervading intelligence of the written word ! 
How wild would be the scream of the infidel philosophers, if, from 
the whole sum of human experience, or the whole range of 
human investigation, they could extort one clear, established, 
and deliberate contradiction of these strange oracles, which have 
come down to us from the remotest, and, as they would have us 
believe, amongst the least enlightened ages ! — Now it has been 
held that the adaptation of man to the universe in which he 
dwells, and of which he forms so small a part, is so exact and 
astonishing, as to afford a powerful argument for the being of 
God ; and this is conceded by most of those who reject the Scrip- 
tures. But it appears to me, that the same argument assumes 
its most powerful and comprehensive form, when it shows, as it 
easily can, that the adaptation of the Bible, in the general sense 
herein signified, both to man and to the universe, is far more pre- 
cise and complete, than the adaptation of man and the universe 
to each other. 

7. There is one more suggestion, founded upon the general 
consideration of the contents of the Bible, too important to be 
omitted. The fact that there is a divine superintendence over 
all human affairs, and that this superintendence is infinite in its 
power and moral in its character, is one of those universal be- 
liefs of the human race, which, like the belief in the mere exist- 
ence of God, seems almost as natural to man, as his physical, his 
rational, or his moral conformation. There is no great difficulty 
in deducing this belief in a clear and rational manner, as one of 
the necessary and ultimate truths, of what is called natural re- 
ligion ; and this has been commonly done, even by those who 
had not the advantage of a divine revelation, or who rejected it. 
Now the suggestion here is this, namely, that the silent but 
sublime order, movement, and control of all things, which we 
observe, which we believe in, and which we call providence, per- 
fectly accords, both as to its reality and its course, with the state- 
ments and the principles of the Word of God, in which its cause, 
its development and its end, are perfectly explained. The moral 
government of the world, as exhibited in the whole course of 
history, and as stated in the Scriptures, appears to be precisely 
identical. God's providence and his word set forth precisely the 
same system of things. Those eternal truths which underlie his 
providence, are fully expounded only in his word. Those prin- 
ciples of government which control the one, are explained in the 

22 



338 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE 0? CHRISTIANITY. 

other. The same difficulties, the same exceptions, belong to 
both. The same remedies are resorted to in both. The same 
progress, the same development, occur in both. Now, however 
simple and universal may be the belief in this providence, it is 
only after long and large observation that we are able to deduce, 
from innumerable examples, scattered over many ages, and ex- 
hibiting the most multiplied conditions, the general laws which 
regulate its course. This is the real difficulty ; and its solution 
involves the whole mass of human experience, and all the powers 
of human reason. In attempting this, we stand upon an eleva- 
tion from which we look back upon the entire course of human 
events, and with the entire labors of the human mind poured out 
to aid us : and after all we succeed but doubtfully in our task. 
Then we turn to these oracles, and we find men in the earliest 
ages of the world — without any of those helps which constitute 
the greater part of our strength — uttering our profoundest conclu- 
sions, as simple verities, most familiar to them ; — clearing up our 
doubts and difficulties, and correcting our errors, even without 
an effort ; and explaining to us, not only the facts whose signifi- 
cance was often so obscure, and the nature of those laws whose 
very existence it had cost us so much to establish, but also the 
grand system and design, into which these facts and laws enter as 
means to an end. They look forward, thousands of years, and 
see most clearly, what we can only perceive most dimly, as we 
look back over the same track of time. And what they see so 
clearly, and we so dimly, are things, which so far as we can com- 
prehend, we could not have seen at all, if we had been placed at 
the beginning, instead of the end, of those long ages, whose 
events are the very elements of all our conclusions. The only 
possible explanation seems to be the one which they constantly 
offer to us. Their miraculous power, their prophetic knowledge, 
their vast intelligence touching the condition of the universe, and 
now their profound acquaintance with the principles of its moral 
administration ; all — all is divine. They spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost. This explains all. 

8. If we enter now somewhat more into particulars, we shall 
find this volume to consist of sixty-six separate books, one of 
which (the book of Psalms) contains no less than one hundred 
and fifty distinct compositions ; and, probably, if we were to ana- 
lyze the contents of the entire volume, we should find that it con- 
tains many hundreds of perfectly distinct and separate treatises, 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



339 



having no other connection with each other than that they treat 
of the same general matters, or were composed by the same per- 
sons. These various compositions occupied a period of fifteen or 
sixteen centuries in their production ; and profess to cover, histori- 
cally and prophetically, the whole period of man's existence upon 
this earth. They embrace every kind of writing, every sort of 
information, and every imaginable subject. History, government, 
laws, institutions, manners, customs, opinions, education, morals, 
religion, philosophy, discourses of every description, poetry in all 
its departments, biography, epistolary correspondence, everything 
from the most familiar discourse up to the most abstract and sub- 
lime meditations ; the whole circle of the sciences furnishes noth- 
ing that is not alluded to — the utmost compass of human society 
and human interests exhibits nothing that is not in some way 
brought to notice, and every aspect under which human nature 
has ever presented itself is distinctly stated and considered. The 
principal persons who were engaged in the composition of these 
various treatises, may, perhaps, be stated at about thirty ; but the 
number would be greatly increased by adding all who produced 
portions embraced now under more general divisions. These 
authors were from every rank in life. Dictators, kings, rulers in 
a free commonwealth, judges, magistrates, lawgivers, generals, 
priests, private citizens, scholars, artisans, farmers, shepherds, 
soldiers, fishermen, tax-gatherers ; and they appear to have been 
persons of every sort of temperament from the most gentle to 
the most perverse, and of every sort of endowment from the most 
exalted to the most unpretending, and of every time of life from 
earliest manhood to extreme old age, and of every grade of at- 
tainment from unlettered simplicity to boundless knowledge, and 
of every condition from the deepest wretchedness up to the most 
consummate human felicity. Yet all these men, through all these 
centuries, treating of all these subjects, so wrote, that although 
they have been subjected to the fiercest scrutiny during more than 
seventeen centuries since the last of them died, it has been found 
impossible to detect the smallest solecism in the entire productions 
of all of them put together, or the smallest discrepancy of fact, of 
principle, or even of opinion of any one of them from any other 
throughout their voluminous writings. Every one agrees in all 
things with every one of the rest. Still more, every one agrees 
with all that has since been discovered of the condition of the 
universe, of the course of nature, and of the order of Providence. 



340 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



And further still, every one seems to have been endowed with 
those sublime gifts, that awful intelligence, and that superhuman 
insight, which are fully expressed by saying they were inspired, 
and which are utterly incomprehensible if they were not. It may 
be said without hesitation, that if any one of the more extended 
treatises which compose the Bible, had existed alone, and had not 
claimed to be divine, it would have immortalized any age or race 
that produced it. And it is absolutely certain, that if the whole 
were now totally lost, the whole human family combined could 
not reproduce it if left to themselves. 

9. Taking another step towards the interior of our subject, we 
find upon every attempt to make ourselves acquainted with the 
contents of the Bible, a deeper and deeper impression that it is 
wholly different from all other books. If we peruse any portion 
of it, in connection with any portion of any other book, we are 
struck with something about it, though we may not be exactly 
aware what it is, which places it so'entirely by itself, that no part 
of it can be incorporated with any other book, nor can any part 
of any other book be incorporated with it, without our being able, 
instantly, to perceive the vast ^difference. The more we enlarge 
the compass of this impression,%nd endeavor to take in the whole 
spirit which pervades the Bible, iffflike manner as a general spirit 
pervades every other book ; the more fixed becomes our conviction, 
that this is immeasurably different ftom*everything else. All this 
difference is on the side of the Bible ; it is a difference which ex- 
alts while it isolates it. There is a gravity, a concentration, a 
weight in all its utterances, and at the same time a solemnity, an 
earnestness, and a pathos ; a profound manifestation, that he who 
speaks has a transcendant right to be heard, and that he who 
hearkens has an immense interest in giving heed ; a way of put- 
ting everything, a significance in everything that is put, a power 
pervading the whole ; and as the result of all, an impression upon 
us, wholly different from that produced by anything else ; and 
which the deeper and more habitual it becomes, is the more favor- 
able to it, and, in all respects, the more beneficial to ourselves. It 
is in the nature of a kind of general testimony of the human 
soul, vague, perhaps, and instinctive, of its recognition of the felt 
presence of a divine intelligence, not fully comprehended, but yet 
really perceived. As we advance from this wide view to a more 
intimate, yet still general consideration, no matter where we 
begin or what we take up, the former impression is not only sus 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



341 



tdined, but deepened. If we will carefully examine the cere- 
monial system of the ancient dispensation, which, perhaps, of all 
parts of the Bible men might be inclined to consider the most 
barren for us; we shall find a monument of skill and power, 
which, considered as a mere human device, is wholly inexplicable. 
If we will consider the book of Psalms, what infidel critics tell 
us it is, namely, only a compilation of the religious odes of a rude 
people; it becomes at once an incomprehensible marvel how 
such a people, using so narrow a speech, and in compositions so 
evanescent, should have succeeded in combining the expression 
of the most abstract and exalted truths with the whole range of 
our religious emotions, in a manner which all the rest of mankind, 
before and since, have been unable to approach. If we will study 
what we call the Ten Commandments, and reflect that the very 
earliest lawgiver of our race, in the very dawn of knowledge, has 
succeeded in reducing to four general propositions the summary 
of all our duty to God, and to six others the summary of all our 
duty to each other; and that he has done this in such a manner 
that both the temporal and spiritual interests of mankind, from 
his day to ours, may be exactly measured by their adherence to, 
or their rejection of his simple and sublime definitions (not only, 
—but so as, in fact,) in some sort to exhaust the two most difficult 
parts of knowledge, namely, that which teaches us the practical 
direction of our own conduct and that which regulates the public 
administration of human society ; — we shall perhaps not err very 
much if we believe his explicit declaration, that it was not he, 
but God, who made this summary. And if, passing from the Old 
Testament into the New, we study deeply the central object of 
that whole book — Jesus of Nazareth — and get an adequate idea 
of his person, his character, and his work as set forth throughout 
all the Scriptures ; I do not see but that it is far more rational to 
admit, with all the writers of the book, that the entire conception 
they all had of the Son of God, was divinely communicated to 
them, than to suppose that any one of them could have originated 
and developed such a conception, much less that all of them could 
have wrought upon that glorious composition, each in a manner 
working out what the rest had left unfinished, and that the perfect 
work should have been what we now behold it. The entire idea 
of Jesus of Nazareth, taken as a whole, is as much superhuman 
as the alleged manner of his birth ; and the working out of that idea 
is as miraculous as the incarnation. The subject matter of his 



342 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

instructions, too, is as great a wonder as the mighty signs with 
which he enforced them. Considering Christ as a mere man, and 
remembering who and what he was as such — the Lord's Prayer 
as a model of all devotion, and the sermon on the mount as a 
model of all discourse, both uttered like all his instructions, off- 
hand, and as the occasion arose, are infinitely more difficult of 
satisfactory explanation than any alleged interposition of God, in 
the manner, and for the ends stated in the Scriptures. And the 
very manner of his instruction has in it that which, as much by 
its unapproachable difficulties as by its amazing power, stamps it as 
superhuman. Let any man attempt to speak in parables ; nay, to 
produce one single parable ; nay, to find one, out of the Bible, in the 
whole compass of human literature ; nay, to compare what are so 
called, in other parts of the Bible, few as they are even there, with 
those uttered habitually, incessantly, by Christ. Those great, sim- 
ple, luminous, and yet wholly inimitable expositions, not of duties 
merely, or mainly even, but of fundamental, and most generally of 
before unknown or unregarded truths, whose habitual use consti- 
tuted the distinctive peculiarity of Christ's manner, and was felt by 
those around him to impart to it a character and a power altogether 
divine. Well and truly might they say, "Never man spake like this 
man." Clear and faithful was that testimony, "The Word was 
made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory 
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." 

10. The writers of this volume contemplated from another point 
of view, are worthy of a most careful study. They furnish, in 
their own persons, not only the first, but the most faithfully de- 
veloped examples, of what the system they have given to us 
really is, and what it can do. As this is true of the whole of 
them, we may illustrate the point by the example of that class 
of them, which is the latest, and perhaps the most familia * to us 
— the Apostles of the Lord Jesus. Now it is needless to urge that 
these men must have sincerely believed all they have told us, to 
be true, and must have been thoroughly in earnest in all they 
did : because all this if not unmistakably certain of itself, is, at 
least, not often questioned. What I insist on is, not only that it 
is infinitely more rational to receive the whole matter precisely as 
they state it, than to suppose they might have been under the 
influence of some strange delusion ; but that, taking human 
nature as it is, there is an utter impossibility that the state of 
case exhibited by them, ever should have occurred or been so ex- 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



343 



hibited, except upon the supposition that their statements are 
absolutely true ; while, on the other hand, supposing- them to be 
true, everything is not only fully accounted for, but natural, and 
in a manner inevitable. It is as inconsistent with the operations 
of the human mind and the exercises of the human soul, that a 
deluded person should speak and act as they have done, as it is 
that an open impostor should have done so. The manner in 
which a man who believes he is under a divine influence — but 
really is not — speaks and acts, is as radically different from that 
in which one speaks and acts, who really is under such an influ- 
ence, as the manner of one is who merely pretends to speak and 
act as taught of God. Delusion is as distinct from reality as 
imposture is ; and to deny this, is not only to outrage our own inti- 
mate perception of truth, and unsettle the foundations of knowl- 
edge, but is, in fact, to render atheism the only refuge from super- 
stition. On the other hand, the possibility of a divine influence 
upon the mind and heart of man, is just as supposable as the 
possibility of a divine influence upon his body, or upon any other 
part of the physical universe ; and the reality of its occurrence 
is as capable of being established, by its own distinctive proofs, 
in the one case as in the other ; and the supposition of its pres- 
ence will explain and establish, or will confute and overthrow, 
an alleged state of facts in the one case as completely as in the 
other ; for in point of ultimate truth we know no more about the 
nature of matter than of spirit, nor any more of God's fundamen- 
tal action — whether direct or indirect — with the former than with 
the latter. Taking the whole case precisely as it stands, the 
simple verity of the alleged facts, in the case of any one of the 
Apostles, is the only supposition that does not leave the whole 
subject in appalling darkness ; and, when we add, one after an- 
other, all the individual cases distinctly recorded and explained 
in the Scriptures as illustrating the nature and operation of the 
religious system therein revealed, any other supposition becomes 
transcendently absurd. A succession of impostors, or a succes- 
sion of fanatics could neither be, nor do, nor say, after the man- 
ner set forth in the Bible. The inward experience which those 
writers develop, was beyond being feigned, nay, even beyond 
being imagined ; so that its bare statement verifies its actual 
occurrence. The manner of its occurrence, as stated by them- 
selves, is the only comprehensible mode in which it could have 
occurred, and is fully sufficient to account for it. The truth 



344 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



which regulated and sustained those wondrous exercises, was 
wholly beyond the bounds of merely human knowledge, and is 
moreover, of itself, when known, wholly incompetent to produce 
such results ; so that its revelation to them, and its being attended 
by the power of God, constitute the very heart of the case. And 
their own conduct, both before and after God's alleged dealings 
with them in a way of enlightening, regenerating and inspiring 
them, together with all the other outward facts of the whole case, 
as made in the Bible, constitute one perpetual and illustrious 
commentary on the divine truth revealed, the divine Spirit reveal- 
ing it, and the divine Saviour therein revealed. The purest and 
wisest of mankind have sighed for the feeblest rays of that light, 
which these impostors or fanatics poured forth so gloriously : and 
which they used, in their mad profusion, only to establish a sys- 
tem, for which, in this world, they suffered the loss of all things, 
and which reveals for the world to come, nothing more certainly, 
than that all their delusions will be extinguished in endless 
night, and all their impostures be visited with the curse of God ! 
It is easier for an enlightened mind to reject the system of the 
universe explained to us by philosophers, and to believe, that its 
great laws so painfully discovered by them are only preconcep- 
tions of their own minds, and its sublime order and power so 
clearly illustrated by those laws, nothing more than grand ex 
hibitions of some of the possibilities of things ; than for a re- 
newed heart to reject the system of divine grace, of which the 
Apostles of the Lord are the greatest and last inspired teachers, 
and to believe that the clear and precious truth they have re- 
vealed, is not real in itself, divine in its origin, and infinite in its 
eternal sanctions. 

11. We may now consider the contents of the Bible in a more 
systematic manner — especially as they explain the actual con- 
dition of our race, as they account for it, and as they propose a 
remedy for it. They declare our present estate to be one both of 
sin and misery ; an estate of alienation from God and rebellion 
against him, in which we lie under his wrath and curse. They 
add, that the danger of our condition is equal to its corruption 
and its wretchedness, and reveal in the clearest manner a future 
and endless state of being, in which we are exposed to infinite 
woe. According to their teachings, sin is the original cause of 
all suffering and sorrow ; and it is of its very nature to become 
more and more aggravated continually, and therefore to produce 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



345 



greater and greater misery forever ; and it is of the very nature 
of God to hate and to punish all sin, precisely in proportion to its 
demerits — that is. in a manner infinitely just. But remarkable as 
all this account is, two particulars are added, if possible more re- 
markable still. The first is, that this was not the original con- 
dition of our race, but that we w T ere created at first in the image 
of God and enjoyed his favor • a glorious and blessed condition 
which was forfeited and lost by sin. The second is, that God in 
his infinite mercy has provided for us a complete salvation from 
sin and misery, both in this world and the next, and that it is the 
object of the Scriptures to bring to light the life and immortality 
offered to us in this new form. In one word, we have lost the 
image of God in which we were created ; we must recover it, or 
perish ; here is a perfect mode of recovery, revealed from heaven. 
I repeat that all this is infinitely remarkable. There is no part 
of it whose bare conception can be accounted for so naturally — if 
indeed at all — as by admitting its simple verity ; no part of it 
within the reach of our knowledge, which the mere statement of 
would not show to be false, if indeed it was false. But, perhaps, 
the most remarkable part of the whole case is that the moment 
these wonderful declarations are made known to us, Ave perceive 
in the facts they contain a perfect explanation of the profoundest 
movements of our own inner life, and a complete solution of all 
the moral phenomena exhibited by our race. So far as the range 
of our personal knowledge extends, we see ourselves and all men 
to be precisely in the condition which the Scriptures describe; yet 
neither they nor we comprehended exactly what that condition 
was, until the depths of our own natures were thus explored for 
us. And beyond the range of our absolute knowledge, both in 
the dim past and the unknown future, these revelations of our 
origin and destiny, these solemn accounts of our fall and recovery, 
come to us in a way which accords with our deepest instincts, 
our saddest experience, our profoundest necessities, our most 
exalted aspirations, and our most ardent hopes. We desire to be 
happy, and yet are miserable. We see the excellence and the 
beauty of goodness, and yet live in sin. We feel that we were once 
better 3ff; not always as we now are; not willing to be so 
forever. Even while we love and practice what is evil, we feel 
that our sins are a burden and our pollution a shame unto us. The 
ruins of a better nature are still visible in the wreck which we 
have become, and the germ of a new and glorious life seems stiJ 1 



346 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



to exist amidst the death which reigns within us. Though we 
shun and dread God, we sigh as we think of his lost image. 
Weak, and blind, and impotent, and perverse, and corrupt as we 
are, there still lingers in us a sense of God's infinite excellence 
and God's infinite love. Now I am not pretending to argue how 
much of this, or any of it, is in us in a state of nature wholly 
destitute of all knowledge of a divine revelation ; but I am 
arguing that the revelation we have received, finds or makes 
these impressions within us, to this argument it is wholly im- 
material which, and that they furnish the highest and most con- 
clusive evidence of which the case admits, that the revealed facts 
to which they are so strangely responsive, are true. If they are 
true, there is an end of the argument ; for it is demonstrably cer- 
tain their discovery and statement must have been superhuman. 
And now we must observe how absolute and crushing the proof 
becomes, upon the admission that any one single human soul 
was ever restored, truly and actually, to the lost image of God, 
according to that general system revealed in the Bible, and which 
purports to be able thus to restore^, all souls. We must absolutely 
deny that one single case ever occurred ; or we must absolutely 
admit the divine origin of the Scriptures. One single well-defined 
footprint, on the strand of a desolate continent, might prove that 
a man had been there, as conclusively as if all the other men in 
the world were to testify that they saw him there. Nay, how 
fierce would be the infidel joy and triumph, if the smallest frag- 
ment of a human skeleton could be discovered in one of those 
strata of the earth's crust, which geologists choose to call pre- 
Adamite? 

12. We may penetrate still more deeply into our own nature, 
and into the remedy proposed for its recovery, in order to perceive 
the special relevancy, as we have already seen the general agree- 
ment, of the one to the other. The Scriptures do not intimate 
that God proposes to create absolutely, and for the first time, a 
religious nature in us. On the other hand, the deepest, the most 
enduring, and the most pervading part of man's nature, even in 
his fallen state, is the religious part of it. He will do without 
everything, sooner than without a religion ; his religious capabil- 
ities can be more exalted and more perverted than all his other 
capabilities combined ; and his whole history is more impressed 
and controlled by the development of religious ideas than all others 
united. A sense of our dependence and of our accountability, is 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 347 



the deepest and the most universal moral sentiment that finds 
lodgment in the soul of man. Our capacity to perceive that 
there exists in things, that distinction which we express by say- 
ing some are true and some are false, is the foundation of our 
rational nature and of our ability to obtain knowledge ; while 
our capacity to perceive that there exists in things that further 
distinction which w T e express by saying that some are good and 
some are bad, is the foundation of our moral nature, and of our 
ability to obtain happiness. Truth, which it is natural to man 
to perceive, to seek, and to love, is our only guide and rule, in the 
one case and in the other. In our fallen state, we do not lose 
our capacity to perceive that such distinctions really exist, for 
then we should be no longer either rational or moral creatures ; 
but what w T e lose is the capacity to perceive with clearness and 
certainty what particular things are true, and to choose with 
constancy and fervor the particular things that are good ; and 
this by reason of our rational and moral nature, and especially 
the latter, having become depraved. Now the whole plan of re- 
covery revealed in the Scriptures, assumes as existing in man, 
this precise state of case, and addresses itself to it. This is our 
present spiritual condition as clearly exhibited by our researches 
into our own souls, and by our observation of all other human 
beings; and this is the condition which the Bible explicitly de- 
clares to be that for which it has revealed a perfect remedy. To 
regenerate this fallen and depraved nature, is its great design. 
Its grand, central idea is a divine Saviour, redeeming a race of 
rational, moral, dependent, accountable, and alas ! fallen and de- 
praved creatures. It declares our dependence, and points us to 
our creator and benefactor. It proclaims our accountability, and 
reveals to us our eternal lawgiver and judge. It recognizes our 
rational faculties, and addresses to them ten thousand arguments, 
ten thousand proofs. It exalts our moral capabilities and spreads 
before us every good and pure and glorious thing that heaven 
itself can furnish, and every fearful evil that even hell unfolds. 
It declares with intense precision all the greatness, and the guilti- 
ness of our sins, and sets before us in the divine Word, a perfect 
rule, at once, of our duty and our condemnation. And then, in 
the infinite grace of God, and his infinite compassion for creatures 
at once so ruined, so depraved, and so helpless, and yet so 
capacious of his exalted service and his eternal enjoyment, he 
crowns all by the unspeakable gift of his only-begotten Son. 



348 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The grand problem of the universe, the awful paradox of the 
Scriptures themselves, God's hatred of sin and God's love for sin- 
ners, is solved on Calvary ! And men can comprehend all this, 
and all that is involved in it, and believe that God is not in it all? 

13. The exact manner in which the Bible proposes to accom- 
plish our salvation, to apply the remedy it reveals for our recovery, 
personally to men, is the next point to which the argument con- 
ducts us, in its inward movement. The general proposition of 
the Scriptures is, that man is in a fallen and ruined condition, by 
reason of the introduction of sin into the world : the particular 
mode of his ruin is, that he has lost the image of God in which 
he was created, and incurred all the effects and consequences of 
that loss. The most general statement of the remedy proposed 
is, that he must be restored to the lost image of God. In a more 
particular manner it is set forth, that the infinite beneficence of 
God, is the particular attribute of his nature that prompts the 
whole divine movement to save sinners, and that essentially 
pervades it all. The eternal love of God the Father, is at the 
basis of our personal salvation. The incarnation, obedience and 
sacrifice of the Son, are the practical outworking of that divine 
love. The Holy Ghost, in his entire work upon our hearts, ac- 
complishes in us the wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and 
complete redemption proclaimed in the Scriptures. Those Scrip- 
tures are the efficacious instrumentality used by the Holy Ghost 
in the entire work wrought in us. Summarily, this is the mode 
of recovery, both in itself, and in its application to us, which these 
Scriptures proclaim to be divine in its origin and its efficacy. 
Assuredly it is a remedy which involves in it, and which makes 
full account of, the nature of man as we know it to be, and the 
nature of God as the Bible reveals that nature to us. As far as 
we can comprehend, we are out of the reach of any remedy, 
except one which shall act upon our rational and moral nature, 
by means of truth. And yet there is no truth known to us, ex- 
cept in the Bible, that has any tendency even, to recover us; and 
the truth there made known to us. cannot do it, except as it is 
connected with the love of the Father, the sacrifice of the Son, 
and the work of the Spirit. This truth, and no other, can do it: 
and this can do it, precisely in the relations pointed out in the 
Bible, and not otherwise. And those relations involve not only 
God's purpose, and the mode of accomplishing it, namely, the 
exercise <ff his infinite beneficence, and that through the particular 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



349 



plan of salvation revealed: but also, the very mode in which 
God exists, in an ineffable union of three persons, in one divine 
essence, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost uniting in the 
infinite grace which saves sinners, and in the work whereby that 
is effected. Concerning this remedy and the mode of its applica- 
tion, the Scriptures add two associated, but very distinct proposi- 
tions, upon both of which they continually insist. The first is, 
that this is a true, an efficacious, and a divine method of restor- 
ing fallen and depraved men to the lost image of God. The 
second is, that there is no other method of doing this, that is 
either true, efficacious, or divine. And upon these two proposi- 
tions they appeal to the universal experience of the human race. 
And we accept the appeal, and hesitate not to pronounce it abso- 
lutely conclusive and overwhelming. Whoever rejects this mode 
of recovery, no matter what other mode he may substitute, proves 
the universal truth of the second proposition, to wit, that there is 
no other effectual mode ; for he does not recover the lost image 
of God, but remains in the pollution, and under the curse of sin. 
Nothing concerning the human race is more indubitable, than 
that a pure heart and a pure life are not natural to man, 
and are not attainable by any method ever attempted except 
that revealed in the Word of God. On the other hand, whoever 
accepts the mode of recovery pointed out in that Word, estab- 
lishes the universal truth of the first proposition, to wit, that this 
is an effectual mode, for whoever is born again, is restored to the 
lost image of God, and is pure in heart and life, precisely in pro- 
portion to the simplicity and the fervor of his faith in Christ 
Jesus. And this also, is the sum of all human testimony that 
bears upon the point : the sum of all outward testimony to the 
lives of Christ's true follower.? ; the sum of all the inward testi- 
mony of their own hearts. Un tedly, the proof covers the whole 
of human experience, and establishes — if that experience can 
establish anything at all — that sinners must perish without the 
Bible, but that, by means of it, they may be saved. Unless, 
therefore, men are both lost and saved, whether God will or not, 
which it is mere folly as well as blasphemy to suppose ; the Bible 
must be attended with divine efficiency and divine authority. 

14. Let us carry this a little deeper. The light which reveals 
all things else, also makes itself manifest. He who is blind, 
neither sees the light, nor that which the light reveals. But if 
there were in the light a power to restore sight to the blind, or if 



350 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 



it could be so used as to produce that effect, the blind thus re- 
stored, could then know that there was light before he saw it, and 
that it revealed to such as had sight all that he now beholds. 
Surely the Scriptures teach with sufficient plainness the mora, 
blindness of men in their natural state ; and just as plainly theii 
ability to see light in the light of God, when he has opened their 
eyes and shown them wondrous things out of his word. It is 
scarcely less dishonoring to Christ, than it is absurd in itself, for 
us to argue in such a manner as to favor the impression, that the 
state of our own minds and hearts has very little to do with the 
effects which God's truth produces upon us. So far otherwise is 
the fact, that every divine truth, however it may appear to the 
natural man to be foolishness, is, to the renewed heart, not only 
clear in what it reveals, but clear, also, in that it is itself revealed. 
Clear in that it is revealed ; for Christ's sheep know his voice and 
follow him, but the voice of strangers they do not know. Clear 
also as to what is revealed ; for they who obey the commandment 
of God have his express promise, that they shall know the doc- 
trine whether it be of him. Spiritual discernment is as real an 
endowment of the new creature as any other ; and a sense that 
our sins are pardoned, may be shed abroad in our hearts, most 
truly and divinely, and in perfect consonance with every law of 
our being. The assurance that God is our God, though grounded 
in a different manner, may be as well and as thoroughly grounded 
as the assurance that our earthly father is our father. Can a man 
go in and out, with his parent or his child, for years together, and 
still remain in doubt whose accents they are which fall upon his 
heart, and whose presence it is that blesses him? And is there 
nothing in the voice of the Saviour of sinners, and nothing in his 
presence to beget within us any deep convictions, any profound 
assurance? The denial of unregenerate men, that they experi- 
ence any inward conviction of the divine truth of God's word, or 
that they see in the blessed Lord either form or comeliness, is 
proof only that the carnal heart is not subject to the law of God, 
and that men given over to strong delusion may believe lies, that 
they may be damned. Practically, our security against religious 
error and delusion is found to lie, not in the superiority of our 
faculties, nor in the extent or thoroughness of our general attain- 
ments even on religious subjects, but in the soundness and vitality 
of our faith, that is, in the thoroughness of our union with Christ ; 
and, by consequence, the completeness of our restoration to the 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



351 



image of God. How often does the true believer smile at infidel 
cavils, which once seemed to him most formidable, or turn away 
with pity or disgust from suggestions of unbelief, which, however 
powerful they may have once appeared, now seem to be only 
wicked or absurd ? The inward process by which such effects 
are produced is analogous to that which occurs to every human 
mind as it becomes deeply imbued with the truths of any depart- 
ment of knowledge : only in the latter case men are naturally 
competent to begin and carry on the work of themselves, while in 
the former they must be subject to a supernatural change at its 
inception, and to a divine power during its progress. Still an 
analogy exists. For even by culture such a change is wrought 
in us, that we perceive at once that any new truth does or does 
not belong to any part of knowledge with which we are familiar, 
and are able to assign to it its position and value. The soul 
which is renewed at all, is renewed by that Spirit which has in- 
spired all revealed truth ; and is renewed by the instrumentality 
of that very truth so revealed, and which is to constitute the 
nourishment of its new life. Upon these conditions, it is impossi- 
ble but that the human soul should find in the Word of God a 
perpetual and self-evidencing light ; and that in very near propor- 
tion to its own deliverance from sin. Taking our nature as it is, 
all this is in exact accordance with what is obliged to occur if the 
Scriptures be true. But it is precisely what does occur, and that 
continually, supposing that they who say they believe the Word 
of God, tell the truth when they say so. It is inevitable, there- 
fore, that the Scriptures must be true, or all who say they believe 
they are true, must be liars. Which latter supposition, besides 
being wholly incredible, is incapable of being established, even if 
it were true, seeing that no man can know what passes in another's 
heart better than himself. 

15. Another step taken in the same general direction brings us, 
face to face, with the great question of the testimony of the Holy 
Ghost, as that question is stated in the Scriptures, and as it is ex- 
hibited in the experience of the human soul. Taking the argu- 
ment drawn from the declarations of God's word on one hand, 
and the inner life of man on the other, it exhibits three very dis- 
tinct stages, at each of which it appears to be conclusive; and at 
the close of all three, overwhelming. In the first place, the Scrip- 
tures represent to us with the greatest precision the actual state 
of the human soul ; and then call upon us to examine ourselves 



352 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



carefully and habitually, and see if its representations are not pre- 
cisely true : and this is done concerning every state of every soul, 
from the darkest and deepest pollution, up through every shade of 
change, to that peace which passeth all understanding. What 
we assert is, that all this is done with invariable accuracy, and 
that the doing of it involves a superhuman insight into the nature 
and operations of the human soul. In the second place, they de- 
clare to us the effects which each particular divine truth, and also 
the whole taken together, are fitted to produce, and when received 
into the soul, actually do produce upon every one of those infinitely 
varied states, and upon the soul itself when in any one of them. 
And then, also, they call upon us to make trial, and see if these 
things are not so. And as often as we make the trial, we find 
that they are so; and that herein is a superhuman power, as be- 
fore a superhuman insight in these divine oracles, or in some mys- 
terious way, along with them. Of these two points, what this 
occasion allowed, has been already said. But there is a third ; 
for the Scriptures plainly assert the existence and operation of a 
distinct and divine agent, even the Holy Ghost, eternally proceed- 
ing from the Father and the Son, which Spirit beareth witness 
with our spirit, that we are the children of God. Of the three 
that bear record both in heaven and upon earth, we are expressly 
assured that the Spirit is one. This is the Spirit of life, by whose 
work it is, that spiritual life is imparted to us : the Spirit of truth, 
whose office it is to lead us into all truth : the Holy Spirit, who, 
in the development of that new life, and through that blessed 
truth, and by his own divine light and power, makes us holy, and 
thus fits us for the service and enjoyment of God. Because w T e 
are the sons of God, he hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into 
our hearts. Sent forth as our Comforter — his testimony is of 
Jesus Christ — and the crowning proof to us of his glorification at 
the right hand of God. This is one of the incontrovertible points 
of the mystery of godliness — that God who was manifest in the 
flesh — is justified in the Spirit. It is he, by whose inspiration all 
Scripture was given — whose testimony is explicitly of Jesus Christ, 
who is the sum of all revelation, and whose finished work in us, 
is the very final cause of our salvation ; — it is he that beareth 
witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God; children 
of God in his work — through that truth — by that Saviour. Such 
is the exalted height to which the Scriptures carry this doctrine ; 
and they exhort all true believers to seek for, and to cherish this 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 353 



earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of 
redemption. But for the purposes of this argument, there is no 
occasion to discuss the point exclusively at so high a level. Ac- 
cording to the declarations of God, if the Bible is his word, there 
is a true and real sense in which Jesus Christ is the true light 
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and in which 
the Spirit of God is poured out upon all flesh ; and the testimony 
of all Scripture is, that this light of God is not different from, but 
is coincident with the light which shines in his holy word ; and 
that this Spirit of God is poured out, not in disregard, but in con- 
firmation of that word of liife. Now, according to the universal 
faith of the church of Christ, every part of the effectual calling 
of his disciples is by the Word and Spirit of God ; — and even 
those who never truly become his disciples, are subject to many 
common operations of the Spirit under the truth communicated to 
them. But upon the theory of the Bible, all these operations 
thus produced, prove the glorification of Jesus ; — and, by inevitable 
consequence, the divine authority of his mission, and the divine 
truth of his word ! It is the fact that such an agent as the Spirit 
bears any testimony whatever to the souls of men, rather than the 
particular character of the testimony borne to each individual per- 
son, which, upon the conditions stated, makes the proof so crushing. 
If there be such a witness, and if he testifies at all, it is immate- 
rial to the argument whether the result of his dealings with our 
souls is despair or peace, agony or glory. Every work of the 
Spirit, therefore, is a testimony to the divine word ; and every new 
testimony which the Spirit adds to his own work accomplished, or 
his own pleadings rejected, is a new proof accumulated. When 
we consider the universality of the influences of the Spirit, general 
and special, under the gospel dispensation, and the intimate nature 
of the proof by which their existence in us is ascertained, to wit, 
our own personal consciousness, it is impossible to estimate the 
magnitude of the folly and guilt which lead men to persist in their 
obstinate unbelief, and their voluntary ignorance of God. 

16. There is another view, wider perhaps, if not so intense, of 
these revelations of God, which lies too immediately in the general 
course we are taking, to be overlooked. The great truths which 
are peculiar to the Bible, and which distinguish the system it in- 
culcates from every other, are all universal truths, worthy, not 
only of universal acceptation, but capable of universal applica- 
tion. The Jewish people, on the other hand, through whom we 

23 



354 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



have received these truths, were the most peculiar people that 
ever existed as a separate community ; the very last people from 
the midst of whom we should expect to obtain a spiritual code, 
fitted for the human race, and a moral teacher qualified in all 
respects to regenerate mankind. Yet out of the bosom of this 
people have come the Bible and the Saviour ; he, one of them- 
selves ; it, their very civil code, and the very cause of all their 
national peculiarities. Yet he, and it, and the salvation which 
he wrought out, and it proclaims, are divinely fitted to become, 
and assuredly predestinated to become, the Bible, the salvation, 
and the Saviour of all the kindreds of the earth ! By a develop- 
ment as wonderful as it is glorious, each Jewish peculiarity is 
found to contain the germ of some all-pervading truth. From 
the heart of a system which seen by itself, and considered as final, 
seems to be the narrowest of all, springs forth another system, 
capacious as the race of mankind, and boundless as their eternal 
being. The mode in which the system of the Old Testament 
emerges into the system of the New, is as marvellous as the con- 
tents of either of the two. To the Jew, the idea of a brother- 
hood, perfect but strictly Jewish, expands for the Christian, into a 
brotherhood still more tender and intimate, which embraces the 
whole family of man. To the Jew, the idea of a glorious God 
ruling over men from the very height of heaven, to the Christian 
becomes the idea of that same infinite God, made manifest in the 
flesh, and becoming God with us. The law came by Moses, and 
the open vision by the prophets ; but grace and truth came by Jesus 
Christ. Yet so came, that of all the law and all the prophets, he 
destroyed nothing, but fulfilled, accomplished, supplemented all, 
and made all glorious in its grace and in its truth. Whosoever is 
descended from Abraham, comes to be translated into, whosoever 
is born of the Spirit ; and every promise to the seed of the father 
of the faithful terminates in the Saviour of the world, and inures 
to the benefit of every penitent sinner. Whosoever will call upon 
the name of the Lord shall be saved : this is the sublime consum- 
mation. Suited to all — open to all — the AVord of the God of all 
— able to save the souls of all ! Every barrier of race, and clime, 
and condition, is broken over : every national and every individual 
peculiarity falls to the ground : the book of God becomes also the 
book of the human race. No nation had ever abandoned its own 
religion to receive that of another people ; but now all nations 
embrace, instead of their cwn, the -eligion, which at first seemed 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



355 



only suited to the most peculiar of all people, but which, when 
fully manifested of God, may satisfy and supply, while it may 
redeem and sanctify every soul of man ! In accomplishing this 
great development, this divine transformation, the Son of God 
came to his own, and his own received him not. Their insane 
cry was, we have no king but Caesar ; — not Christ, but Barabbas : 
let his blood be upon us, and upon our children ! It was a fearful 
part of the great scheme to be wrought out for the redemption of 
man : and God took them at their word. Peeled, scattered, and 
sifted throughout the world — the curse of that innocent blood has 
cleaved to them, and rulers, fiercer than Ceesar, have robbed and 
murdered them. Jerusalem, after eighteen centuries of desola- 
tion, is still trodden down ; and Israel still awaits in stubborn 
grief, that fulness of the Gentiles, until which, blindness in part 
is happened to her. Yet how signal is God's mercy, that even in 
circumstances of such atrocious guilt, that blindness of Israel 
should be only in part ; and what a marvel of divine wisdom is 
the use which God has made of his ancient people in all their 
wanderings — to the furtherance of the great design they had set 
about to frustrate? They have attested in every land, and through 
every age, the precious and fundamental truths, accepted by them 
as revealed in their own Scriptures. They have, in like manner, 
by their miraculous preservation, carried everywhere the report of 
those glorious truths they rejected, and illustrated in some degree 
their nature and their power. And they have continually con- 
firmed, in their wondrous estate, the reality of those predictions, 
and the force of those promises, yet unfulfilled, which constitute 
so large a part of the oracles of God. Standing upon such an 
elevation, and surveying such prodigious proofs, the unbelief of 
the present age is not a whit less surprising than that of those 
who personally beheld the glory of the Word made flesh, even as 
the glory of the only-begotten of the Father. 

17. The fact is never to be lost sight of, that the religious 
system developed in the Scriptures — that system which in its per- 
fect form we call the religion of Jesus —professes to be, not a doc- 
trine merely, but also a power, a paramount and irresistible moral 
power. It claims to be the power of God unto salvation ; and 
upon that ground challenges the judgment of mankind. From 
the very first, it has aimed at the exclusion of all error, the re- 
moval of all evil, the extirpation of all sin. From the point we 
have reacheJ, we are able to estimate this force, as it has been 



356 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANIT 5T. 



exerted through many centuries and in an immense variety of 
positions* and to determine, with accuracy, both its nature and 
its effects, both its interior organization, and its outward operation. 
Let us begin with the latter. — We have seen this religion of Jesus 
in conflict with Judaism, after the glory had passed from Moses to 
Messiah : the struggle of a real with a ceremonial righteous- 
ness : the idea of God in types and symbols, perishing before the 
idea of God incarnate. We have seen it in conflict with ancient 
heathenism : all the gods enshrined in the Pantheon, and all the 
gods supported and adored by the triumphant Csesars, lords many 
and gods many, dethroned by the true and living God. We have- 
seen it in conflict with the false prophet of Mecca : the fierce, 
licentious and warlike religion of the East, after a struggle so 
protracted and so vehement, withering away before our eyes, 
even as this pure, gentle, and peaceful system culminates more 
gloriously. We have seen it in conflict with the Man of Sin : 
the Bride of the Lord pining for twelve hundred and sixty years 
under the rank and ferocious apostasy of the middle ages, meek 
and undismayed through centuries of despair, victorious at last, 
only because the very gates of hell could not prevail against her 
We have seen it in conflict with every form of error from within, 
and every mode of opposition from without : superstition, heresy, 
idolatry, skepticism, oppression, persecution, seduction, corrup- 
tion, everywhere confronting all, everywhere resisting all, pre- 
cisely in proportion to its own vital purity, as determined by the 
open Bible which it has borne aloft throughout the earth. — And 
now, in these last days, one wide and universal conflict is waged 
with every error and every sin, throughout the whole world : and 
the banner which is the emblem of divine love, still rises higher 
and higher, and floats more and more broadly over the host of 
the redeemed : and still from the undaunted array, the loud battle- 
cry of centuries is lifted up more audibly, glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men ! In how 
many aspects, and through how many ages, has the same sub- 
lime spectacle been exhibited ! God manifest in the flesh, redeem- 
ing, reclaiming, reconquering rebellious man ! Truth united 
with goodness, subduing, saving sinners ! Grace abounding, 
grace triumphant ! As we survey this ceaseless, and as it might 
seem, endless struggle, there is one truth constantly obvious, one 
conception infinitely remarkable, which, justly weighed, ought to 
be decisive. It is of the nature of all human passions to subside, 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 357 



at last. All human excitements pass away. All human interests 
decay. All human institutions perish. What is great and good, 
along with what is little and vile, hastens to a common oblivion — 
is swept into an undistinguished ruin. New passions, new ex- 
citements, new interests, new institutions, follow each other cease- 
lessly, each springing up from the decaying mass of the old, 
which return no more forever. There is no restored empire 
amongst men. There is no restored philosophy, that has ever 
risen from the dead to lead men captive a second time. There is 
no restored superstition, that has ever recovered a lost dominion 
over the human soul. How immeasurably different from this 
universal law of all human things, has been the force which has 
manifested itself throughout the whole career of Christianity? 
With an unutterable tenacity, its divine truths cleave to man, 
and stimulate him more and more. With a divine vigor they 
recur and recur again. With an immortal freshness, they recover 
from every stroke, and shake off every incumbrance, and purge 
themselves anew, from generation to generation. One immense 
portion of the work of God's church in the world, has been to 
recover portions of her own heritage wrested from her by violence, 
and to teach, a second time, nations and races amongst whom 
her memorial had been obscured, or utterly put out. And that 
which happens to nothing else, is that in which her main hope 
and strength lie ; the continual revival in her own bosom, of her 
own primeval spirit, the constant recurrence of the living power, 
through w T hich all her conquests have been won. This grand 
peculiarity, and all the wonderful effects which flow from it, the 
one and the other distinguishing the Christian religion from all 
human things, admits only of that explanation which the Scrip- 
tures themselves give. It is Immanuel ! God is with us ! This 
explains all ! 

18. And now, as to the intimate nature of this divine power, 
with which the religion of Jesus claims to be pregnant. The 
Bible exhibits to us a most wonderful climax with relation to this 
subject. In the first place, it reveals to us, absolutely, the spir- 
itual system of the universe, with particular reference to our own 
position in that vast and glorious system. In it, and nowhere 
else, we are clearly instructed in the nature, the attributes, and 
the purposes of God ; the origin, the nature, and the destiny of 
man ; our relations to time and earth, to God and eternity. In 
the second place, the Scriptures, declaring our present fallen and 



358 



THE INTERNAL EVII ENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



depraved condition, have not .eft us to deduce for oirselves, a 
spiritual system for the regulation of our faith and practice, from 
the sublime truths thus revealed to us by God. But they set 
before us in the clearest manner, and as deduced by God himself, 
all the beliefs and all the conduct, which become such creatures 
as we are, occupying such a position, in such a system, and 
possessing such a revelation. In the third place, they do not 
leave us, even there, without all further guidance and support, to 
receive and obey these divine teachings, and live ; or reject them 
and perish. They superadd an unspeakable gift, a Saviour, not 
only revealed to us, but bestowed on us. Not a teacher only, 
not a guide, a pattern, a benefactor, a friend, only; but a divine 
Saviour from our sins. Surely the wildest urgency could demand 
no more ! Ultimate and fundamental truth, all revealed : all 
faith, and all practice infallibly deduced therefrom, and set before 
us : an almighty Saviour superadded ! But God has given more. 
In the fourth place, to crown all, a divine and infinite agent, the 
Holy Ghost, covenanted in the blood of Jesus Christ, is revealed 
to us, as the potential author, at once of our salvation, and of the 
whole revelation by which it is promoted. The eternal Spirit, 
who inspired the Word of God, who applies to us the salvation of 
Christ, and who inclines and enables us to believe and obey, is, 
so to speak, the vicar of Jesus Christ, in this sublime work of re- 
constructing the moral universe. Now, according to the theory 
of divine revelation, this climax exhibits to us, some idea of that 
living power which the Scriptures proclaim. If we consider, in 
their order, the stages of this climax, we may also have some 
idea of the manner in which and the extent to which the human 
soul is influenced by that power. Those great and fundamental 
truths which lie at the foundation of revealed religion, are ac- 
cepted in a certain sense, by the great mass of men, in all coun- 
tries in which the gospel has had free course ; and the result is 
manifest in the great superiority of all nations and races, which 
are even nominally Christian, over all others. As we rise a 
step higher and observe those portions of our race, which make 
some serious endeavor to regulate their lives by the general pre- 
cepts of the Christian religion, we shall perceive a still more 
marked amelioration of the moral, and it may be added, the 
intellectual condition of man. At the next elevation, we pass to 
that condition, in which men openly profess to obey the Lord 
Jesus, and look to him as the fountain of their blessings and the 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



359 



end of their hopes ; and here we observe a still more decided 
advance upon the natural, and, but for the gospel of God, the uni- 
versal condition of our race. All these are stages through which 
multitudes of individual persons scattered through all ages and 
races, and through which, also, many communities, as such, have 
passed. They are degrees in our convictions, phases in our spirit- 
ual progress, points of development in our religious life. But 
the crowning work is the power of the Holy Ghost within us ; 
and as that is experienced in the fulness of its divine efficacy, 
whether in an individual, a generation, or a race, there is ex- 
hibited the consummation, at once, of the work of grace, and 
of the overwhelming demonstration. In whatever sense moral 
truth, resting on the veracity of God and enforced by his infinite 
majesty, can affect the human understanding ; in whatever degree 
the human soul can be influenced by motives, or impressed with 
the idea of responsibility, or controlled by the sense of duty, all 
directed to objects which are infinite and eternal ; whatever 
efficacy abides in the work of a divine Saviour crucified for us, 
and thereby made to us, the power of God and the wisdom of 
God ; whatever reality is found in that new, and spiritual life, 
unto which men are born again, by the demonstration and the 
power of the Holy Ghost : just to the whole extent of all these 
sublime forces, set to work and sustained by the unsearchable 
riches of divine grace, is it possible for us to comprehend with all 
saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, 
of the love of Christ, and to be filled with all the fulness of God ! 

19. Here then we reach a point where the argument terminates, 
as an outward one, upon the certainty of our knowledge ; and as 
an inward one, upon the truth of our consciousness. If the 
knowledge of anything exterior to ourselves can be said to be 
certain, then it is certain that multitudes of human beings have 
been born again ; for there is no other fact outward as to us, es- 
tablished by an amount of testimony so great, so various, and so 
conclusive. But if men have been born again, then it is certain 
that the Bible is true and is divine ; for in it alone is that great 
fact developed to mankind, and through it alone is there provided 
for us a power adequate to that supernatural change.. Again, if 
hunan consciousness is true, and its testimony faithful as to what 
passes within us, then, also, it is certain that multitudes of men 
have been born again. For we cannot kn:w anything whatever 
concerning our inner life, more certainly \han we can know 



360 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



whether or not we are spiritually dead. But, as it has been al- 
ready shown, if men have been born again, then the Bible is true 
and divine. If, however, we cannot be certain of anything exte- 
rior to ourselves, nor yet certain of anything that passes within 
us, then it is wholly immaterial, and wholly incapable of being 
determined, whether the Bible, or anything else, be either true or 
false ; or, indeed, whether there is such a distinction in things as 
we call true and false ; or, in short, whether even our state of 
mental uncertainty is itself real. We are, upon this hypothesis, 
reduced to a condition of utter imbecility. Upon whatever prin- 
ciple man is held to be, either rational or accountable, it can be 
shown, that if anything is certain, it is certain that the Scriptures 
are true and of divine authority. If every principle upon which 
man's rational and moral nature can be vindicated, is overturned, 
everything after that ceases to be of any more consequence to us 
than to the beasts that perish. So the most rigorous logic con- 
ducts us to the grand result which all experience has established, 
that in the degree we trust God, we exalt man ; and in the degree 
we reject God, we debase man. And there we may safely leave 
the argument. 

III. 

1. I have now endeavored, in a simple and direct manner, undei 
many successive propositions, all tending to one general and cer- 
tain conclusion, to trace the course of an argument whose result 
seems to me to be absolute and unavoidable. What we know 
concerning ourselves — what we know of God, of the order of 
providence, of the course of nature, and of the state of the uni- 
verse, appears to be absolutely inconsistent with the idea, that the 
contents of the volume which we call the Holy Scriptures could 
possibly have been of less than divine origin. On the other hand, 
those contents, whether considered absolutely, or considered rela- 
tively, to our knowledge on all the great topics just alluded to, 
seem, beyond all question, to have sprung, as they profess to have 
sprung, from the bosom of God, and to be invested with infinite 
claims upon our faith and obedience. The question at issue is 
one of awful solemnity and terrible magnitude. Our happiness 
in this world, and our blessedness throughout eternity, are involved 
in our making a right decision of it, and then in acting rightly 
upon that decision. If we reject God, we are undone. But it is 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 361 



of little worth, that we accept him in name, and lake no heed to 
his commands ; nay, even that our minds perceive his truth, while 
our hearts turn away from him. 

2. It is by these very Scriptures that we are first and chiefly 
taught how to know God, and how to accept of him. Then let 
us take his blessed revelation into our hands, and, if the image 
may be endured, let us feel, even as he who is blind feels the per- 
son and the face, until, by little and little, the conviction grows 
into his soul, that the lineaments are lovely, and then that they 
are familiar, and at last that they are most precious. Thus, if we 
will begin, even in our blindness, to handle the Word of Life, it will 
grow upon us with a gentle and yet mighty power, until our very 
weakness is made strength, and our very darkness made light. 
Let us sit down at the feet of Jesus and learn of him. Though 
his words be strange to us at first, they will, more and more, find 
a lodgment and a response within us. They alone, but they fully, 
can divide between the very joints and marrow — the very soul 
and spirit of man. That lone, wayfaring man, may appear to 
us without form or comeliness ; and his solemn and tender words 
may sound strange to us amidst the din of life. Nevertheless, let 
us turn and follow him. As we walk by his side, we shall see 
above that crown of thorns a diadem of eternal glory ; we shall 
feel those words, which once we understood not, burn within us, 
as though celestial fire had fallen upon our souls ; his favor will 
become life unto us, — his loving-kindness better than life ! O 
taste and see that the Lord is good ! 

3. Nay, is it not wise and comely in us to go deeply into an 
inquiry upon which there is for us so much at stake? Let us 
then open our minds freely to the instructions of this marvellous 
record. Let us examine carefully its wondrous statements. It 
professes to contain the true solution of all those immense problems 
over which our spirit lingers so anxiously ; those terrible paradoxes 
before which our highest reason has so often recoiled. It comes 
to us with the acclamations of many generations, and proclaim- 
ing itself a messenger from heaven. This much, at least, we are 
sure of, that if it can teach us what it professes to reveal, it can 
teach us what none besides ever knew, or if they knew, ever re- 
vealed. Let us then calmly, but earnestly, scrutinize its claims, and 
master its contents. At first, it may seem hard to be understood 
A new method is opened before us, and new matter continuall) 
rises to view. Many things incomprehensible, many wonderful 



362 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN ITT. 



many we can hardly credit, many we are ready to cavil over, 
many we feel prepared to reject, many almost hateful to us. Still 
there arises a strange fascination from it, and a marvellous power 
seems to be somehow involved in it. Let us not strive against that 
fascination, nor resist that power. If they are of the earth, they 
will soon show themselves earthy ; if they are from the Lord of 
glory, they can conduct us nowhere but to light and peace. Let 
us examine once more even that which we comprehend the most 
fully ; there is more in it than we have yet observed, something 
forever new, something forever beyond what we had yet noticed. 
If it were wholly of man, a small part of the labor we have be- 
stowed upon it, would have made us perfectly master of it all ; 
would have exposed to us perhaps many weaknesses, many errors; 
would have, assuredly, elevated us to something like a level with 
its noblest portions. Let us be just to ourselves, and to it. Let 
us confess that the more familiar we become with its exalted 
spirit, the more clearly do we perceive the immense distance at 
which it is elevated above us. Let us acknowledge that if we are 
wise unto salvation, it is in its wisdom we have become so ; and 
that we have found at last that which is a lamp unto our feet 
and a light unto our path, even thy word, O Lord, which is settled 
in heaven, forever ! Paul, when he exclaimed in the midst of 
the sublimest meditations, that all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge are hid in Christ; and Simon Peter, when answering 
for the twelve, he told the Lord, that because he had the words 
of eternal life, they were sure he was the Christ, the Son of the 
living God ; and the woman of Sychar at Jacob's well, when 
Jesus told her, I am he, and she believed, because he knew all 
her outward and all her inner life : all gave utterance, in differ- 
ent forms, to the common experience of the human soul, and to 
various aspects of the grand principle on which its conviction 
rests, that God's word is truth. 

4. A final step brings us to the bottom of a subject so full of 
grandeur in itself, and of such fearful import to fallen men. Let 
us take that step, and receive into our hearts this heaven- 
descended truth. Let us uncover the depths of our inward being 
before its searching light and its mighty power. Let us open 
widely to it, those strange hearts so full, at the same moment, 
of weakness and of strength, so desperately wicked, and yet 
capacious of eternal life. Our profoundest desire is, for inward 
peace, and yet we are the victims of a ceaseless inward struggle. 



THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



363 



Our deepest conviction is that we are impure, and yet we shrink 
with horror from the thought of abiding so forever. There are 
necessities in our hearts which nothing human can supply; pas- 
sions, which nothing human can either satisfy or control ; desires, 
which nothing human can either subdue or gratify ; powers, 
which nothing human can either adequately excite or occupy. 
And oh ! there are sorrows, deep sorrows, which will not be 
assuaged ; wounds, which, if the balm that is in Gilead cannot 
heal, must fester forevermore ; sins far beyond the reach of all 
skill but that of the great physician of souls. Will you risk that 
skill, my brother? Will you ask him to remember Calvary, and 
then to pity you ? This is his proposal, which has gone out into 
all the world, and the sound thereof to every creature : Come 
now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord ; though your 
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow : though they 
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. And this is the re- 
sponse of that innumerable company, who received his truth in 
the love of it: Unto him that loved us and washed us from our 
sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto 
God, and his Father ; to him be glory and dominion, forever and 
ever." 

5. No doubt it is the duty of all the disciples of Christ to use 
their utmost endeavors to spread the everlasting gospel over the 
earth, and, by every means in their power, enforce its claims upon 
every creature. Nor, indeed, is it possible for them to avoid feel- 
ing the deepest interest in this great labor of love. Still, how- 
ever, we must not imagine that their interest, or, if the expres- 
sion is allowable, the interest of their master, in the result, bears 
any assignable proportion to that of those who are ready, in their 
daring wickedness, or childish ignorance, to despise the com- 
munications of God's grace. Nor must we allow ourselves to 
suppose, for a moment, that the smallest uncertainty as to the 
grand event — much less the least danger to the cause of God's 
truth — or the ultimate triumph of Christ's kingdom, can arise 
from all the folly, the ignorance, the unbelief, and the impiety of 
all who reject the divine Redeemer. Whether men will hear or 
whether they will forbear, yet shall they be made to know as- 
suredly that God has sent his messengers into their midst. The 
word that has gone forth out of the mouth of God shall not re- 
turn unto him void, but shall accomplish that which he pleases, 
and shall prosper in that whereto he sent it. Heaven and earth 



364 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



may pass away ; but not one jot nor one tittle of all that God has 
uttered shall pass away, till all is fulfilled. The stone which was 
cut out without hands, shall not only break in pieces the iron, the 
brass, the clay, the silver and the gold, but shall become a great 
mountain, and fill the whole earth. Whosoever shall fall on this 
stone shall be broken ; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will 
grind him ;o powder ! 



|foptor dMijrrttnra k Cjmstiatrift), 



BY 

• BY B. M. SMITH, 

TAS10B. OF THE 3TA ISTOX ?£ESBTTEaiAN GHU&CK. 



Christianity has been the object of a varied and ceaseless, 
though futile opposition. Ruthless persecutions marked its early 
nistory. It grew strong under oppression. The flattering caresses 
of power, and the wealth and honors of the world were lavished, 
to corrupt its faith and form. Its vitality survived the taint. 
Intestine wars, which consume the vigor of other institutions, 
revived its energies and purified its principles. Religious con- 
troversies, intrinsically deplorable, served to define more clearly 
the boundaries of truth ; and persecutions, fiercer than pagan, to 
distinguish its adherents. As a purer Christianity was emerging 
from the convulsions and revolutions of the sixteenth century, it 
encountered a form of opposition, professedly based on the princi* 
pies avowed by the Reformers. With them, Deists renounced the 
bondage of superstition for the dictates of reason, and abjured 
the dogmas of Popery, for the authority of God. But, affirming 
that the teachings of natural opposed those of revealed religion, 
they boldly denied its claims, questioned its principles and at- 
tacked its evidences. They conducted the assault with serious- 
ness, dignity and, at least, the semblance of reasoning. It was 
repelled with solemn earnestness, unassuming boldness, candor 
and generosity. If one party, with no personal concern in the 
result, had nothing to hope from success, but the honors of victory, 
and the other, confident in the power and permanence of divine 
truth, nothing to fear from defeat, but temporary dishonor, both 
seemed duly sensible that the solemn interests of the divine pre- 
rogative, man's duty here and destiny hereafter, were suspended 
on the issue. 

A later stage of the deistical controversy presented a . different 
aspect. If not convinced, intelligent and candid infidels had felt 
forced, by the irrefragable proofs of Christianity, to retire from the 
contest. The field was occupied by a desperate and distracted 
squadron of vulgar sciolists, content with an endless repetition of 
repelled attacks. The world saw, in the bold sophisms, the reck- 



368 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



less assertions, the scurrilous abuse and drivelling wit of Paine, the 
degeneracy of his class, and the hopeless efforts of men, whose 
success had been the greatest curse, and whose defeat, the greatest 
blessing to mankind. 

Meanwhile Christianity, released from the obligation to defend 
its existence, assumed its proper position and exerted its inherent 
energies. Constitutionally aggressive, it was not satisfied that 
the violence of the assault had ceased, and the activity of oppo- 
nents subsided in the calm of indifference ; but demanded a cor- 
dial embrace of its principles and a cheerful submission to its pre- 
cepts. In religious relations, constitutionally exclusive, it was 
not enough that men ceased to swear by Mahomet and sacrifice 
to Juggernaut, cast their idols to moles and bats, or abandoned 
the worship of four-footed beasts and creeping things ; they must 
also avow the doctrines, and practise the duties taught by the 
lowly Nazarene. 

The zeal with which these claims have been urged, and the 
energy with which they have been prosecuted, have aroused the 
slumbering foe. Infidelity has revived the contest, in our genera- 
tion, under a new policy, and one imposing on the advocates of 
Christianity new obligations to vigilance and effort. Our oppo- 
nents now aim to weaken the efficiency of a system they despair 
of defeating, and, in the manner of retreating armies, to impede 
a progress they are unable to prevent. On the one hand, under 
the guise of friendship, proposing to elucidate the mysteries of 
Revelation, by bungling efforts, they make intricacies more per- 
plexing. Thus we have metaphysicians, who, in explaining the 
mode of divine existence, obliterate all traces of a personal 
divinity in the lamina of Pantheism ; theologians, who by the 
absurdities of transcendentalism, have eviscerated the moral 
power of the Saviour's life and doctrine, and the benefits of his 
atonement ; and moralists, who in sentimental whinings, have 
stripped the divine character of the attributes of holiness and 
justice. On the other hand, taught by experience the futility 
of marshalling their forces for a general conflict, on whose issue 
the whole cause might depend, our opponents have posted them 
in detachments, armed with the weapons of a defensive, but 
annoying warfare. Old objections are revived or new devised. 
They seek not to destroy our reverence for Revelation, as a 
whole, by the arraignment of the Bible as a falsehood, but by an 
adroit exhibition of the alleged falsehoods of the Bible, they 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS 10 CHRISTIANITY. 



369 



aim to sap our confidence in its parts. Such a policy, though 
advantageous to them, involves us in much embarrassment. It 
is easy to object, and impudence or ignorance may propound, in 
a few words, questions, which ingenuity and learning may re- 
quire pages to answer. In the course of eighteen centuries, count- 
less objections have been started, as well the produce of curiosity, 
timidity, and candor, as of stupidity, arrogance, and malice. 
Many of them, though repeatedly confuted, are pertinaciously re- 
iterated; for new books find new readers, and the old poison may 
prove efficient by repeated doses, or find subjects for its power un- 
provided with the antidote. With the more general diffusion of 
knowledge, the evil as well as the good has been disseminated. 
Skeptical opinions, which were once to be found only in the heavy 
folio or voluminous octavo, accessible to the learned, are now em- 
bodied in the essays of newspapers and diatribes of reviews, in- 
sinuated in novels or interwoven in amusing tales. They thus 
become entrenched in the fastnesses of popular incredulity, or 
sustain the strongholds of popular apathy and indifference. The 
farmer, mechanic, day-laborer, apprentice, and school-boy, learn 
objections to particular parts of the Bible, enough to engender 
doubts and cavils as to all, and hinder the workings of a true 
faith. 

Such then, is the present aspect of opposition to Christianity. 
It is very evident, that the contest of our generation, must be 
more difficult, because more manifold, more perplexing, because 
more desultory, and more prolonged, because ultimate success is 
suspended on surmounting unnumbered obstacles, neither alone 
important, the greater part even trivial, but presenting an aggre- 
gate of imposing consequence. 

I. Our way will be prepared for a particular examination of 
objections, and some repetition avoided, by a few preliminary re- 
marks, connected with the general subject. 

1, Since infidels, who reject the Christian, and Deists, who reject 
all revelation, receive in common with us, the truths of Natural 
Religion, as of divine origin, objections to Christianity are properly 
answered, by showing that they are equally pertinent to the re- 
ligion of nature. Indeed, irrespective of the distinctness, with 
which the scheme of natural religion may be avowed, if men only 
allow that God is the Author of nature or natural governor of the 
world, whenever we find the same sort of difficulties common to 
Christianity and the course of nature, they cannot, on account of 

24 



370 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



such difficulties, deny that the former has come from God, unless 
they also deny that the world has come from God, and exchange 
Deism for Atheism. 

2. The existence of objections against Christianity, even when 
we are incapable of providing satisfactory answers and explana- 
tions, in every case, is no argument against its claims. 

(1.) Reason has been given to guide us to the knowledge of 
truth, and we may feel assured that God reveals nothing contra- 
dictory of its clear and proper deductions. But reason cannot 
devise schemes of Providence or systems of Revelation. There 
are many things in the constitution of nature, which we had 
never invented, and which are very different, when discovered 
from what we might have previously expected. Now they are 
known, our reason judges and approves of them. Thus in the 
adaptation of one part of this constitution to another, we find, that 
the young of mammiferous animals being provided with suitable 
nourishment by the parent, may be produced at any season, while 
those of graminivorous animals, are ordinarily produced only at 
certain and suitable seasons. The sun's powers are said to be 
chemical, luminiferous, and calorific, and these are respectively 
strongest when most needed; the first, for germinating in the 
spring, the second for nutriment, in early summer, the last for 
maturing, in late summer and early autumn. As reason may 
thus be led to approve what it could not devise, in the course of 
nature, so, on a due examination and care, it may be led to ap- 
prove, what it could not have devised in Revelation. 

(2.) Moreover, there are many truths of natural and moral 
science, to which, before experience and observation, we might 
have objected as incredible, unreasonable or inconsistent with the 
divine attributes. Thus brutes without reason, act with more 
sagacity and foresight than man, in some cases, even involving 
life. The Copernican theory was once rejected by thousands on 
what they believed the irrefragable evidence of their senses, though 
now it is generally received. We now believe the light to be inde- 
pendent of the sun, which we are told is a dark body. We know 
that volcanoes and earthquakes, pestilence and famine, overwhelm 
in ruin, or sweep, as with a besom of destruction, many fair por- 
tions of earth, and that millions of infants are doomed to pain, 
suffering and untimely death. These and other strange and sur- 
prising facts in the course of nature, might, as matters of a reve- 
'atioiij Lave appeared liable to objections. Of the truth of those 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



371 



which are matters of science, discovery, observation, and scientific 
investigation have satisfied us. Of the consistency of others 
with divine wisdom and benevolence, we feel satisfactory assur- 
ances. The grounds of this saiisfaction, we are not called to state 
at large, It may be said, however, that the present scheme is one 
of imperfect development, and that we are ignorant and incapable 
of understanding all the reasons and modes of divine government, 
and hence, what, as isolated facts, now surprise and confound us, 
may, when seen with perfected faculties, as parts of one great 
plan, not only satisfy our doubts but elicit our admiration. Now 
seeing that liableness to objections in the course of nature, may 
be removed, it is equally credible that liableness to objections in 
the scheme of Revelation may be removed. Satisfied by evidence, 
that the one is from God, we see that objections which might have 
existed because it contained things different from our expectations, 
would have been frivolous and invalid. Thus the divine origin 
of Christianity being sustained by reliable evidences, objections to 
its matter even grave and important, founded on our conceptions, 
ought not to impair our confidence in its truth, as they may, for 
aught we know, be as susceptible of refutation as the others. 

(3.) As we could not know before experience, what would be 
the course of nature, it is presumable from analogy, as well as the 
nature of Revelation, which purposes to enlighten us, that we could 
not know beforehand, what it ought or ought not to contain, how 
it ought to be expressed, figuratively or plainly, obscurely or clearly, 
and by what and what kind of evidence it ought to be presented. 
We may sit in judgment on man, the laws and modes of whose 
existence we can apprehend and appreciate, and of some things 
in human science, we can, in advance, affirm what will or will 
not be. But, of God's ways in the natural and moral world, we 
are incompetent judges, except in so far as he has provided mate- 
rials. We may say in the matters of science, that such planets 
exist as Mars and Yenus, but we cannot say, that in the " mighty 
annular space" between two planets, no other exists. Of parts of 
the universe we can say, " here are the monuments of divine power 
and wisdom," but of others we cannot say, " here God has never 
wrought; here he never will; no planet ever moved, and none 
will ever, no system will ever be arranged in these vast regions of 
space," till we shall have winged our flight over the boundless 
area of immensity, or traversed in one moment of time, the im- 
measurable cycles of an e'ernity from everlasting to everlasting. 



372 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



So in matters of religion, we may assert what God has taught us 
in the works of his hands, and by the methods of his providence ; 
but of other things, as the statements of Revelation, of which 
natural religion furnishes us with nothing similar, we dare not 
deny or affiim, as to say, " this is contrary to justice," or "this to 
mercy," or " this to reason," till we have fully compassed the na- 
ture and character of that God who is " unsearchable in his judg- 
ments," and " whose ways are past finding out." 

(4.) These views are very much strengthened, when we bear in 
mind, that the Christian revelation is not only a republication of 
the religion of nature, but is a religion of sinners. It teaches men 
that they are rebels against God, haters of the light of truth, evil- 
doers, and, as such, exposed to the just and severe indignation of 
God. Such a revelation must be displeasing to men, and supposing 
it to be true, and in the particulars mentioned, its teachings cor- 
respond with those of natural religion, men, as criminals, are in 
capable of sitting in judgment on the procedures of their sovereign. 
Hence besides an abatement from the force of objections, because 
of man's natural repugnance to the scheme, such as it is, there 
must be an abatement on the grounds of this moral incompetency, 
as we have seen there must be on account of the intellectual in- 
capacity to decide on the character of a revelation. 

It seems thus, on the whole, evident, that the existence of ob- 
jections against Christianity forms no argument against its claims. 

II. Whatever may formerly have been the relative consequence 
of objections to the scheme and objections to the evidences of 
Christianity, we feel assured, that in the present aspects of the 
opposition to its claims, the former are by no means matters of 
trivial importance, if indeed they do not rank with the latter, as 
hindrances to their acknowledgment. Were the divine origin of 
Christianity to be decided, only on the principles of sound reason- 
ing, we might safely rest the decision on the force of its evidences; 
and these shown - to be irrefragable, all objections, based on its 
alleged internal improbabilities, might be summarily met, by the 
proof of our incompetency to decide what a revelation ought to 
contain. But all men are not logicians, or at least, do not always 
reason logically, and hence it becomes important to give to the 
popular objections against Christianity, a particular consideration. 

Under other circumstances, a detailed examination of all no- 
ticeable objections might be both practicable and profitable. Bui 
this is obviously inconsistent with our prescribed limits. Nor is it 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



373 



absolutely necessary to our purpose. Such an examination of some 
of the most important, may furnish to the minds of candid and 
impartial persons, satisfactory assurances that none of them pre- 
sent adequate reasons for the neglect or rejection of the Christian 
scheme. 

1. Objections to the evidences of Christianity constitute a 
prominent feature in the opposition to its claims. The most im- 
portant of these, having, according to the syllabus of this course, 
been already fully discussed, either as special topics, or as falling 
within the scope of other lectures, require no farther attention. 
Since, however, the alleged insufficiency of some, or all of these 
evidences, to establish the truth of Christianity, has been some- 
times adduced as a positive argument against its claims, it may 
neither be impertinent to our own general purpose, nor involve 
any material repetition, to give to this general objection to the 
evidences, a brief consideration. 

(1.) In a matter, whose decision is sustained by several distinct 
proofs, the real deficiency of one does not necessarily invalidate 
the others. Thus could a proposition, subversive of the evidence 
of miracles, be sustained, our confidence in that afforded by other 
sources is not impaired. The character of Christianity as a sys- 
tem of moral truth and the effects of the truth would remain, and 
the prophecies recorded in the Bible, whose fulfilment is attested 
by history, would not be erased. 

(2.) The alleged insufficiency of one or all of the evidences 
may not be owing to anything intrinsic. The impairing of any 
sense, will, of course, impair the force of evidence addressed to us 
through its medium. So defects of mental culture, as to knowl- 
edge or discipline, or obliquity of moral nature, may greatly im- 
pair the power of evidence, which, fairly presented, might be con- 
vincing. This is daily exemplified in respect of the moral and 
physical interests of men, and its pertinency to this subject is 
readily apprehended, by all who have observed, how much pas- 
sion, pride and prejudice affect the human mind, in matters of 
religion. 

(3.) Supposing that, on examination of the proofs in favor of 
Christianity, we are left in some doubt of their sufficiency to es- 
tablish its claims, we are not thereby justified in its rejection, or 
even a suspension of our investigation. For our doubting itself 
implies some degree of evidence in favor of that, of which we 
doubt. Even when evidences, for and against a proposition, so 



374 POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



balance, that one set destroys the force of the other, as ground for 
a conclusion, yet there is more evidence for either side, than for 
thoughts or views, rising in the mind without any cause which 
may be assigned. That the evidences for Christianity do not pro- 
duce conviction, is not therefore equivalent to saying, there is no 
evidence. There being some, it matters not how little, consider- 
ing the importance of the interests at stake, that others of equal 
or greater general intelligence, reading and ability with ourselves, 
have decided favorably on these claims, so far from being justified 
in their dismission, we should rather suspect some flaw in our 
course of reasoning, or some inaccuracy in our supposed facts, and 
earnestly seek more light. For there are numberless instances in 
our daily life, when we form decisions on very impeachable evi- 
dences of correctness, and engage in important enterprises, where 
the probabilities of success are very faint. The experience of 
others, their opinions, and our reasonings and deductions from sup- 
posed facts, received on doubtful testimony, are often relied on, 
though our liableness to deception, the uncertainties of all future 
events and that of our living among them, together with contrary 
experiences, opinions and observations, may, and often do raise, 
not only some, but great doubts of the propriety of our decisions. 
Thus we are compelled to act on probabilities. So, while God has 
very clearly marked the path of duty in Revelation, he has left us, 
as in other subjects of a moral nature, to ascertain that he has 
thus marked it, by the use of our reason, framing a judgment on 
the probabilities presented. 

(4.) That the alleged insufficiency of evidence may be a ground- 
less complaint, and want of conviction be ascribable to want of due 
attention in using the means, is made highly presumable, by this 
consideration : that the evidences in favor of the truths of natural 
religion, though patent to all, in the works of creation and provi- 
dence, have not so extensively or permanently impressed the minds 
of men, as those in favor of revealed. This has been true, even 
although the propagation of its truths has not been resisted by 
virulent and cruel persecution, nor opposed so strongly by the nat- 
ural dispositions of men. As God has not made these evidences 
irresistible, which would have been a virtual annulling of free 
agency, but has required us to exercise our reasoning and moral 
faculties, in order to an understanding and conviction of truth, we 
rightly ascribe this failure to receive the instructions of natural reli- 
gion, to a want of proper attention. So, as God has not made the 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



375 



evidences of Christianity irresistible, and for the same reason, we 
may justly ascribe the want of conviction, to a failure of diligence 
and serious attention, and not necessarily to a want of evidence, 
sufficient to secure our assent to its propositions. 

(5.) The alleged insufficiency of some of these evidences maybe 
ascribed to a neglect of others. It has been well observed, that the 
evidences of Christianity may have been constituted such as they 
are, as a part of some men's trial, or state of probation. This is 
consistent with the divine method in respect of other important 
moral subjects. We are exposed to temptations to do wrong, and 
furnished with incentives to do right, and resistance to one and 
concurrence with the other, are left to our choice, for which we are 
responsible. A studious and serious effort in pursuit of what is 
probably our duty, renders the path of virtue easier, and a yield- 
ing to the dictates of passion or suggestions of indolence, facili- 
tates the progress of evil. Thus any evidences of Christianity 
appearing doubtful to any, even to a very great degree, affords 
temptation to its summary rejection, or gives opportunity for the 
virtuous exercise of our faculties. And as some men, perhaps in- 
clined by the unpalatable truths of the Bible, to rejection, or fail- 
ing, by indolence or carelessness, to examine the subject seriously 
and patiently, do not obtain evidence sufficient for conviction, 
they must blame themselves and not the divine dispensation 
under which they live, which, in this, as other things, commends 
itself to our enlightened reason and sober judgment. 

(6.) However insufficient the evidences of Christianity may, 
for any reason, appear to some, yet on a fair and impartial esti- 
mate of the acknowledged facts in the case, it is far easier and 
more logical, to account for the origin of the system, on the hy- 
pothesis of a divine Revelation, than on that of human invention 
and imposture. If the Christian be esteemed credulous and super- 
stitious, in receiving as divine, what the light of nature, the 
revelations of science and human experience have more and more 
confirmed, the infidel defies reason, by a creed of contradictions 
to its teachings, and disgraces Faith by a subscription to para- 
doxes, more preposterous than prophecy and more marvellous than 
miracles. The infidel must believe that predictions, with which 
history, written by neither Jews nor Christians, affords numerous 
striking coincidences, were merely shrewd guesses, and these, for 
the most part, guesses of men as devoid of political sagacity as, 
by the infidel's theory, of moral principle. As a specimen of such 



876 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



predictions take one of the earliest, fullest and most minute, that 
respecting the fate of the Jews. It was foretold that they should 
be dispersed among all nations, be a proverb and a bye-word, and 
their sufferings and persecutions, involving various improbable 
and minute events, are detailed with the scrupulous exactness of 
an annalist. History has returned a most uncompromisingly ac- 
curate fulfilment. Unprecedented and paradoxical has been the 
fate of this people. Without temple or altar, a king, a priest or 
a prophet, unchanging they have endured all change, and remain 
to our day, distinct, in the practice of the religious rites received 
by their fathers. Other races have melted away or been merged 
into each other, in spite of every effort to prevent such a fate, 
while they have remained separate, with every effort to dena- 
tionalize them. The infidel must believe that from a compara- 
tively rude and uncultivated people, a horde of untutored shep- 
herds, but just escaped from a cruel and oppressive bondage, 
without philosophy, science, or literature, we have obtained the 
only clear and consistent account of the origin of the world, the 
most sublime and rational, and only worthy views of the Divine 
Being and attributes, and the purest principles of law, for regu- 
lating his worship, and the duties and relations of mankind. He 
must believe, that men were found among the Jews, capable of 
instructing the world in these great truths, while the enlightened 
nations of antiquity, though justly celebrated for affording models 
of eloquence, poetry, statuary, and architecture, as well as sound 
principles of natural and moral science, have, in their highest 
stages of advancement, provided mankind with the most silly 
legends, puerile traditions and absurd theories on the world's origin 
and the first principles of religion. As to the New Testament, the 
infidel must believe, that a few obscure, ignorant, illiterate fisher- 
men, " the scum of a nation, itself the scum of the world," so 
imposed on the senses of men, including foes as well as friends, 
that their " cunningly devised" tricks were acknowledged to be 
the most astounding miracles, the witnesses only differing in 
opinion of the power by which they were wrought, whether de- 
rived from heaven or hell. Or if it be contended, that the nar- 
ratives of the New Testament were composed at a later period 
than that assigned by Christian writers, then must the infidel be- 
lieve an absurdity still greater. For by rigid investigation into 
their literary history, these narratives are brought within thirty 
or forty years of the period whose wonders they detail ; and with 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



377 



numberless minute circumstances of times, places and persons, 
forming salient points for detection, were exposed to the rigid crit- 
icisms of a most malignant and inveterate opposition. Yet with 
accessible testimonies, in some cases as reliable as the senses, in 
all, removed but one step from their certainties, by which these 
narratives might have been branded as the fables of fools or the 
forgeries of knaves, mankind perversely determined to believe 
thein to be true, and after centuries of laborious effort, by the most 
minute criticism, this most wonderful literary forgery has not 
only survived, unscathed, all attacks made upon it, but been 
transmitted to our day, with accumulating evidences of its genu- 
ineness and authenticity. 

And since the authorship of the New Testament cannot be 
traced to any hand, competent, humanly speaking, to such a work, 
whether the infidel assigns it to one set of impostors or another, 
he must believe, that they have portrayed a character faultless 
and unique as a portrait, beyond all precedent pictures of the 
imagination, the most self-consistent and natural as a living 
example, without a duplicate in all the histories of fact or the 
fancies of fiction. He must believe, that not only one, but four 
persons were found competent to the wonderful feat of represent- 
ing their hero in actual life, and while so differing from each 
other, as to avoid all well-grounded suspicion of collusion, they 
have evinced the same originality of invention, heavenly purity 
of thought and child-like simplicity of style, and have made their 
Master, in the sublimity and pathos of his instructions, purity and 
beauty of his life, and patience and dignity of his sufferings, 
speak and act in a manner unprecedented and inimitable. He 
must believe, that they succeeded in weaving into the web of his 
history, paragraphs not more wonderful for their avowals of divine 
origin, than for their susceptibility of a translation "without the 
loss of a thought or a grace" into the language of every nation; 
and while their congruities have been so firmly and consistently 
knit together that no material discrepancy has ever rewarded the 
most diligent scrutiny, yet the whole has been prepared with so 
little marks of design, that these congruities are often only ap- 
parent on the most careful study. He must believe that the early 
propagators of Christianity, with no assignable motive, and often 
against every assignable motive, persevered in imposing an as- 
tounding fraud on the world, and cheerfully braved contempt, 
persecution, infamy and exile, the scourge, the prison, and the 



378 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



cross, to maintain their unprofitable falsehoods. He must believe, 
that bigoted as they previously were to the Jew's religion, as 
then popularly understood, they underwent all these dangers to 
destroy not only it, but every other ; that without arms, wealth, 
or political power, they succeeded in establishing a system, which 
contrary to all precedents in the history of religion, transcended 
all natural, national or linguistic boundaries, and yet survives all 
disasters, defeats, and defections. He must believe that, such was 
the constancy of these conspirators against truth, among thou- 
sands, not one could be found, even of those who abjured the 
faith, who ever exposed the fraud or unfolded the secrets of this 
moral machinery which " turned the world upside down." He 
must believe, that with all their villainy they preached sincerity, 
that charity was taught by bigots, and holiness by impostors, and 
to all their inconsistencies, they added that of practising what they 
inculcated. Finally, must the infidel believe, that impostors, by 
the combined power of pure doctrines, precepts and practices, have 
fastened on the best part of the world, a system, more powerful in 
motives than all law, more efficient in energies than all enterprise, 
and more enduring in result than all human institutions. Surely 
such a faith is a definition of the blindest credulity. 

2. There is a large number of objections arising from the miscon- 
ceptions or misunderstandings of pardonable or culpable ignorance, 
perversions of the plain meaning or misapprehensions of the scope 
of particular parts of the Scriptures, and the malignity of self- 
conceited scoffers, swelled with the pride of a little learning and 
vain-glorious of its display. Such are readily set aside by the cor- 
rections of knowledge, and a careful and candid estimate of the 
declarations of the Scriptures. We present, in a summary man- 
ner, a few specimens, the facility of whose confutation may be 
predicated of all of the classes they represent. 

It has been often asserted, that the ark could not hold its al- 
leged contents. Its dimensions were 450 feet in length, 75 in 
breadth, and 45 in depth, by modern calculation, of a capacity 
equal to 32,000 tons, equivalent to that of sixteen large ships of 
war. Eight persons, 250 pair of quadrupeds, to which number 
the various species of such animals has been reduced, a fewer 
number of birds, with all the rest of the living contents, and suf- 
ficient provision for a year, might surely find space in a vessel, 
which would have contained twelve or fifteen thousand men and 
provisions for eighteen months. 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 379 



The Scriptures are accused of containing many very indelicate 
passages. But when we bear in mind that they profess to detail 
facts, that the opinions of men vary, in different ages, respecting 
what is indelicate, and that the record in the Bible does not excite 
in our minds, as that of novels and romances may, any corres- 
ponding sinful emotions, but on the contrary, is calculated to pro- 
duce an opposite influence, no great weight can be attached to 
this objection. 

The curses and imprecations of the Psalms and other parts of 
the Old Testament, are adduced as inconsistent with the charac- 
ter of a work proceeding from God. Not to urge, that by a legiti- 
mate rendering of such passages, the expressions now appearing 
in an imperative mood, would lose their objectionable features in 
the future tense, it may be replied, that God, as a righteous judge, 
might delegate to his inspired servants, his acknowledged preroga- 
tive of calling down on his enemies the curses to which they may 
have rendered themselves obnoxious. 

Philosophers so called, sneeringly remind us, that there were 
doubtless rainbows before the Flood, and hence Moses' statement, 
"I do set my bow in the cloud," implying its first appearance, is a 
most unfortunate blunder. But a tyro in Hebrew will inform us, 
that " I appoint my bow," is as lawful a translation, and thus re- 
lieve the philosophers of their kind concern for Moses. 

Pretended antiquarians having identified no bricks from the 
tower of Babel, assure us, that Moses' narrative of its erection, is 
to be classed with the fabulous legends of the old w r orld. We 
might simply ask for some valid reason for discrediting the Pen- 
tateuch. Strabo and Herodotus, however, have furnished some 
memoranda of the existence in Chaldea, of a tower called Belus, 
having walks upon it, along which two chariots could drive 
abreast. 

Various mistakes, contradictions and inconsistencies have been 
industriously culled from the pages of inspiration, and trium- 
phantly paraded as conclusive vouchers for the human origin of 
the Bible. That a book, whose most modern parts are nearly 
eighteen centuries old, — written in languages, of which one has 
been dead for 2500 years, describing a very ancient people, of 
dissimilar customs from ours, and of very peculiar history ; — and 
which has passed through many hands, and been often copied, 
should present no literal and verbal inaccuracies, would indeed 
argue a miraculous preservation. But what is the amount of all 



380 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



the alleged inaccuracies? Their historical and rhetorical effects 
do not alter a material fact of history, or modify a rule of good 
writing, and their moral have never influenced the nature of a 
doctrine or the character of a precept. The Hebrews and Greeks 
used letters in computation. It so happens that the numeral 
value of very similar letters was often different. Thus 40 and 
400, 2 and 20, 4 and 200 are pairs of examples of this, in the 
Hebrew, and 3 and 6 in the Greek. This simple fact resolves a 
number of alleged contradictions and errors, since the mistake 
of a transcriber, in the matter of a line, one fiftieth of an inch 
long, might produce a considerable error in numbers. The ac- 
counts of John and Mark respecting our Saviour's crucifixion are 
different. John says it took place at the sixth hour, Mark says 
the third. Both might have used the letter whose numeral value 
is 6, and the copyist of Mark may have made it a 3. 

Sometimes one writer gives the round number, and another, 
more accurately, furnishes the additional fractional number. One 
says our Saviour's transfiguration occurred " about eight days 
after." Another says it was " after six days." The former in- 
cluded the preceding and subsequent day. 

A contradiction in different narrations of the same event is often 
easily reconciled by a little care in comparing the passages. Moses 
makes Jacob's family which went to Egypt sixty-six, or, adding 
Jacob, Joseph and his two sons, seventy. Stephen, in Acts vii. 14, 
states the number of the family at seventy-five. Now it will be 
observed, that Moses expressly excepts the wives of Jacob's sons, 
and gives " sixty-six" as the number of his descendants who went 
with him. Stephen says Joseph " sent for his father Jacob and 
all his kindred, seventy-five souls." In this were the sixty-six 
actual descendants of Jacob, and the nine wives of his sons, then 
living with him, who, as part of u his kindred" make up seventy- 
five. Thus, passages, once contradictory (apparently), are evinced 
to be critically correspondent. 

The kings of the Jews often commenced their reigns during 
those of their fathers, or other predecessors, and sometimes one 
writer dates from the collegiate, and another from the sole succes- 
sion. In genealogies, apparent errors are removed by the well- 
known facts, that one person sometimes had two names, — as to 
this day we speak of Cicero by the name of Tully, — sometimes 
the same name belonged to two persons, and names often appear 
with various spellings, by translations into other languages, or hy 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 381 



errors of copyists. The genealogy of our Saviour is twice ghen ; 
but that of Luke is evidently a tracing of his lineage through his 
mother. He is said to have been as " was supposed, the son of 
Joseph, who was the son of Heli," &c. Now the words " the son" 
before Heli, are supplied by the translators, and might as well 
have been, " the son-in-law." The custom of the Jews was to 
keep registers, and from them the evangelists doubtless compiled 
the genealogy. Other explanations of the phraseology here used 
have been given, but all coincide in the very natural and easy 
resolution of the difficulty, by adopting this as the register of 
Mary's ancestry. 

Thus we see how readily the Scriptures may be relieved from 
the many petty objections, of which fair specimens have been pre- 
sented. There are some indeed too trivial for notice, such as the 
sneer on Moses for using the third person in speaking of himself, 
of which Caesar was notoriously guilty, — and the celebrated soph- 
ism, that contradictions are inferable when one writer omits what 
another relates, of which the abridgers of Dion Cassius furnish 
samples. For these contributions to the rules of writing and in- 
terpreting history, the world is indebted to the author of the "Age 
of Reason;" whether the discovery was original, we do not under- 
take to say. 

3. One of the most prolific themes of a declamatory denuncia- 
tion of Christianity is furnished by the existence of mysteries. 
The doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Divine De- 
cree are cited as special illustrations of this objection. 

(1.) Mystery is properly opposed to explanation. The inspired 
volume is not necessarily precluded from containing mysteries, of 
whose existence it may be a part of inspiration to inform us. 
The sacred writers have nowhere professed to explain everything 
connected with the divine nature and economy. God's plan of 
redemption was called a mystery, because not fully explained, 
though a matter of inspiration, of which a record was made. We 
readily concede that the mysteries of the Bible are "great," and 
many things are presented which we cannot fully comprehend. 

(2.) But while above reason, these mysteries are not necessarily 
inconsistent with reason. By the very nature of the case, this is 
more than we can assert, since reason has been furnished with no 
materials for forming an opinion. Thus the mysteries of the 
Trinity and the Incarnation arise from our ignorance of the 
mode of divine existence, and that of the Decree from our igno- 



382 



POPULAE OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



ranee of the mode of the divine government of free agents. To 
a school-boy Newton's philosophy may be above reason, but can- 
not be said to be opposed to his reason, for on account of ignorance 
and immaturity his reason cannot be exercised on its principles. 

(3.) The constitution and course of things in this world, not 
only raise a presumption that mysteries might be expected in a 
divine revelation, but ought to reconcile us to their existence. In 
the words of the inspired penman, " God doeth great things, which 
we cannot comprehend. Dost thou know the balancings of the 
clouds? Can any understand their spreadings, or the noise of his 
tabernacle? Who hath laid the measures of the earth, or who 
hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations 
thereof fastened? Where is the way where light dwelleth? and 
as for darkness, where is the place thereof? Hast thou entered 
into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of 
the hail? Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the 
drops of dew? Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, 
or loose the bands of Orion? Knowest thou the ordinances of 
heaven? Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who 
hath given understanding to the heart? Dost thou know the 
wondrous works of Him, who is perfect in knowledge?"* Our 
daily and important duties, labors, studies, relaxation, nourish- 
ment, rest, motion, pain and pleasure, are all connected with most 
intricate and perplexing mysteries. We know the laws of motion, 
but of its real nature are profoundly ignorant. The formation 
of our bodies, the process of vegetation, the combination of in- 
stinct wit/i brute forms, or of mind with human, the power of a 
wound to inflict pain, the odor of plants, the nature of chemical 
combinations, the structure of a worm, the tint of a violet, the 
painting of a rose, the source of an aerolite, the origin of an 
earthquake, and hundreds of similar subjects, are full of inexpli- 
cable wonders. What is heat? light? electricity? magnetism? 
If gravitation binds planets to a centre, what binds the centre to 
its place? We can know something of the habits of various ani- 
mals, but who knows how those habits are formed ? How, in the 
vast numbers of the irrational creation is knowledge imparted and 
obtained? Why does the sensitive plant recoil at our touch? 
Why does the graft perpetuate its kind, and not that of the stock 
on which it feeds? Why do plants seek the light, the sun-flower, 
more devotional than man, ever bow towards his god, as he makes 
* From chaps. 37th and 38th of Job, 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 383 



the circuit of the heavens? Of all the wonders of nature, man 
is the greatest. We can describe his frame, with its muscles and 
veins, arteries and blood, bones and flesh, but what gives motion 
and power to them all ? Who has touched the quick, and searched 
out the hiding-place of animal life? And when all nature has 
been explored, let us question the explorer. What is mind ? 
whence its being? when and how united with the body? Is it 
modified matter, or is matter modified thought? Does it ever 
cease to think, even in sleep? Why cannot it end its own opera- 
tions? Is not then its essence thought? Does it know in what 
its essence consists ? Where does it reside? In the brain? the 
chest? or the whole body? anywhere? nowhere? And what 
doubt and perplexity hang over every act and emotion of this 
most mysterious, most consummately curious work of an Al- 
mighty God ! Who can stop his own breath, or check the throb- 
bing of his heart? Who can explain the motion of a finger, or 
the opening of the eye? "Man," says one, "essaying to know 
his nature, resembles a kitten first brought before a mirror. It 
jumps over it and behind it, frisks and twists and turns, vainly 
striving to reach the fair illusion, till at length in weary despair," 
it demurely retires from that most mysterious enigma, the image 
of itself. 

Yet who doubts the existence of the natural world, and that of 
himself, or the facts adverted to, however wonderful, because they 
involve mysteries ? 

He, indeed, who rejects any doctrine of Revelation or Revealed 
Religion itself, on account of mysteries, must, to be consistent 
cease all mental and physical efforts, till satisfied, by explanations, 
of the mysteries involved in these efforts. The farmer must cease 
to sow, the mechanic to labor, and the philosopher to reason, till 
they fully comprehend the inexplicable wonders of the earth, the 
body, and the mind. We must, too, reject all natural religion. 
Is the Trinity incomprehensible? The omniscience, omnipresence, 
omnipotence, yea, self-existence of a great First Cause, are no less 
so. Who, by searching, can find out God ? who can understand 
the Almighty to perfection? who can grasp the idea of an exist- 
ence from everlasting to everlasting? who can comprehend an 
omnipresence, co-extensive with immensity, an omniscience, co 
incident with every event, past, present, and future, intimate with 
myriads of agencies, multiplied by myriads of creatures, and an 
omnipotence, controlling the mighty evolutions of the physical 



384 POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



universe, and the yet mightier, more complicated, as well as subtle 
powers of the moral, in all their vast influences, in all worlds, 
through time and eternity? 

The difficulties of the divine decree ultimately resolve them- 
selves into the insoluble mystery, that God's purposes are ac- 
complished, and yet free agency remains unimpaired. But the 
mystery is not a teaching peculiar to the Bible. If we believe 
there is a God, we believe he acts by design or plan, that is, 
decrees or purposes to act as he does. For the evidences of 
such design furnish the conclusive proofs of his existence. But 
such design, includes the mutual adaptations of all the parts of 
individuals, multiplied by those of a number of individuals, and 
these by those of the species, and these by those of a genus : and 
then again, the whole are multiplied by the adaptations of the 
whole material universe in the relations of its myriads. Connected 
with this vast number, in which each minute motion of the mi- 
nutest insect is to be contemplated, in its relations to all the rest 
of the world, this design includes all mental and moral agencies 
and causes, of all intelligent beings of earth, so that a thought or 
a word, even of the humblest child, or the feeble moan of an un- 
conscious infancy, forms an element in the production of remote 
results. Now the harmonious relations of all this vast and com- 
plicated system of material and immaterial, rational and irrational 
creation, are perpetuated in entire consistency with free agency. 
To disconnect any part, the least, of this wondrous design, from 
the great First Cause, is to destroy the proofs of his Being, since 
it would no longer be his design. But can there be a greater 
mystery than the coexistence of such design and free-agency? 
This is the problem common to the Revelation of the Bible and 
the Revelation of Nature. Indeed the blank and cheerless postu- 
lates of Atheism cannot escape the charge of mystery. What more 
wonderful than a creation full of design without a designer, laws 
of matter without a lawgiver, or a world of rational beings, ever 
seeking a God, where there is no God? What so wonderful as 
chance making all things, when it cannot build a cabin. In 
short, if belief is to be repelled by mysteries, there is no prospect 
of rest to ourselves, short of stark pyrrhonism, a negation of all 
belief, the belief that we do not believe, the conviction that we do 
not exist. These "awful and gigantic shadows" will probably 
never be entirely cleared, either from the book of Revelation 01 
that of Nature. A Newton's genius cannot explore those of the 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



385 



one, nor an angel's those of the other. Both may " desire to look 
into them," but in the effort to sound the abyss, are lost in un- 
fathomable depths. While no doctrine suspends its instructions, 
and no precept its duties, on the comprehension of mysteries, let 
us desist, alike from vain speculation and wicked cavils, and " be- 
lieve and wonder, love and adore." 

4. Objections to the divine origin of the Scriptures, based on 
their alleged contradictions of morality, in the conduct of God him- 
self, or of persons acting by his authority, deserve a brief notice. 

(1.) God's treatment of Pharaoh, according to the Mosaic ac- 
count, is regarded as an infringement of the principles of justice, 
in that he hardened Pharaoh's heart and then destroyed him for 
impenitence. Attending to the order of the narrative, we find that 
Pharaoh first hardened his own heart, by rejecting God's authority. 
God's previous revelation to Moses, that he would harden the heart 
of Pharaoh, could not, of course, influence him, and indeed, may 
be no more than an intimation of his purpose to set before him the 
admonitions and warnings, by which God knew he would harden 
himself. This was not their necessary effect. But remembering 
that Pharaoh had rejected the divine message and aggravated his 
previous impiety, God was justified in his punishment, and select- 
ing his own method, he made sin its own punishment. Men now 
meet the same result by persevering in evil courses. 

(2.) As to the immorality recorded of God's servants or the 
instruments selected to accomplish his purposes, a few general 
principles will cover all important cases. The sacred writers are 
responsible for the facts they record and not the character of those 
facts, and their simplicity and impartiality in recording the faults 
as well as virtues of their heroes, should commend their credibility. 
The cruelties, perfidies, and barbarities of the age, delineated in 
the history of the Jews, are relieved by instances of generosity, 
kindness, and pity, seldom found in the history of other nations 
of the same period. While the Mosaic code presents enactments 
of great severity, it must be remembered, that it was drawn for a 
people on the verge of civilization, and withal, has furnished to 
the world, some of the best and most enduring principles of wise 
government. We may briefly notice, some particular instances of 
immorality, alleged to have been countenanced by God. Though 
guilty of murder and adultery, we are told that David is pro- 
nounced a " man after God's heart." But this was said of him in 
comparison with Saul, as to his official conduct and station. His 

25 



386 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



sins are mentioned with marked disapproval, and met a severe 
punishment. Rahab's faith in the divine promise and her conceal- 
ment of the spies, and the "fear of God" evinced by the Hebrew 
midwives, and not the deception of the one case and the evasions 
and prevarications of the other, are mentioned with approbation. 
Ehud and Jael were both guilty of treachery and perhaps deceit 
—certainly of murder. They were instruments of God, for deliv- 
ering the Israelites from oppression. The conduct of the former 
is merely stated, and the approval of that of the latter, by the pro- 
phetess Deborah, is restricted to the act of destroying a tyrant. 
God may have commissioned each as his agent, and left them, as 
he does and often has done, to select their methods of service. 
Such examples are not propounded for imitation, unless we were 
placed in circumstances of similarly extraordinary character. 

(3.) There are several cases, in which conduct deemed immoral, 
is expressly averred to have been authorized by God. Thus the 
judgments on Korah and his company, on idolaters, on the forty- 
two little children, and on the various heathen nations of Canaan, 
are cited. God was the head of the Jewish nation, and idolatry 
or other sins were punished by him, with marked severity, in vin- 
dication of his prerogative and for preserving the purity of his 
truth and worship. Korah and his company perished for a wilful, 
presumptuous, and daring act of disobedience. The "forty-two 
little children," may have been, by as proper a translation, youths, 
and in this event, knew better than to revile God in the person 
of his inspired messenger. Accepting the translation of little chil- 
dren, it was a punishment on the parents, and like God's judg- 
ments of a similar character in our day, must be resolved into the 
exercise of his divine sovereignty. 

The various nations of Canaan were intruders on the soil of the 
promised land, and besides were deservedly objects of divine dis- 
pleasure. We are told that so great were their iniquities, the land 
was ready to vomit them forth as the stomach rejects a deadly 
poison. We acknowledge the righteousness, notwithstanding the 
severity, of the punishment of sin under every government. God 
often employs earthquakes and volcanoes, hurricanes, pestilence, 
and famine, and as in this case, bloody and destructive wars, to 
execute his purposed judgments. The Jews were the instruments 
of his hand, and only in part. They are often reminded of hi3 
extraordinary interventions in their behalf, and the " stars in their 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 387 



courses," the fierce insect and the hail were commissioned to aid 
in driving out the nations whose iniquities were full. 

5. We are told that it is inconsistent with the character of God 
to punish his frail creatures, eternally, for a few sins committed in 
this world. 

- Deists have acknowledged that the doctrine of future re- 
wards and punishments forms a valuable incentive to virtue and 
preventive of vice. The enhancement of the sanction, by invest- 
ing the reward and punishment with the attribute of eternity, 
ought not, of itself, to form an objection. But since the alleged 
disproportion of sin and its punishment is the gist of the diffi- 
culty, it may be remarked : (1.) That equally disproportionate i3 
virtue and its reward, to which none object. (2.) That if it be 
said, virtue brings its own reward, and being intrinsically a 
source of happiness, must perpetuate that happiness indefinitely, 
so may sin, by its nature, ever remove the sinner farther from 
God, which will be one chief element of his misery, and thus 
perpetuate that misery indefinitely. (3.) That according to the 
constitution of nature, comparatively unimportant acts or trifling 
words are often followed by a train of evils lasting as life, and 
enduring through generations. (4.) And after all, we are by no 
means competent to decide on the merit or demerit of conduct, 
whose consequences we cannot calculate — whose motives are un- 
known and the rules of whose approval or condemnation, none 
but a God of infinite wisdom and holiness can properly establish. 
To these considerations, may be added the well-known fact, that 
whencesoever derived, the idea of such punishment did not ap- 
pear repugnant to the moral sentiments of the heathen Greeks 
and Romans, in whose mythologies we find it incorporated and 
illustrated in the well-known fables of Sisyphus and Tantalus. 

6. Those who affect a peculiarly proper estimate of human 
"Progress" and "Development," in a free inquiry after truth, 
speak contemptuously and disparagingly of what they term a 
"stereotyped" Revelation — or revelation in a book, as calculated 
to cramp man's powers and bind us, of this enlightened period, 
to the antiquated dogmas of a primitive and unpolished age of 
the world. 

(1.) Moral truth is, in its nature, permanent, and its principles 
are immutable and perpetually applicable. As tc the recorded 
facts of the Bible, the progress of knowledge is affording increas- 
ing ev dence of their accuracy, and the investigations and dis- 



388 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



coveries of science, are strengthening- the conviction, that the 
voice of nature confirms the utterances of that of Revelation. 
In the intellectual character of Bible truth, we discover depths in 
which giants may swim, as well as shoals where infants may 
wade. In the natural world, most of those truths, important for 
man's daily business, are comparatively plain ; yet there are 
materials, on which his powers of discovery and invention may 
be exercised with no assignable limit. So the Scriptures, while 
affording readily, all truth that is material and essential, cast up, 
as it were, on the surface, present a sufficient compass for the 
most vigorous and extensive researches of the human mind, in 
unlocking and unfolding the treasuries of divine wisdom. It is 
not probable, that any truth essential to man's physical neces- 
sities, remains undiscerned, in the volume of nature, or any 
essential to his spiritual, in that of Revelation ; yet many, highly 
important for the confirmation and proper elucidation of truths 
already discerned, may yet be discovered in both : and the book 
of Revelation, as well as nature, may yet be sufficient to employ 
the most exalted intellect, even in the extreme " progress of de- 
velopment." 

(2.) We know that without " books" as a means of perpetuat- 
ing and diffusing thought, man would be little better than a sav- 
age. It is, surely, very accordant with this actual state of the 
world, that Revelation should be communicated as other valuable 
truth. It is very credible, that he who has given a Revelation, 
would adapt it to all ages and states of the world, and if true, 
the sooner it be made permanent the better. 

7. The Mosaic account of the creation and fall of man, or the 
origin of evil, has been the theme of much cavil, sneering and 
ridicule. 

(1.) The vindication of Scripture from the charge of inconsis- 
tency with the truths of science, especially as they affect the ac- 
count of creation, having fallen into other hands, in the course 
of these Lectures, we pass over the subject with one remark. 
We may safely abide the decisions of competent and impartial 
judges, on a comparison of this account with the various absurd 
cosmogonies and puerile stories of other writers, whether ancient 
or modern. 

(2.) The division of the creative process into periods, finds a 
beautiful and striking analogy in that course of nature, according 
to which, we discover a certain system or order, prevalent in all 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



389 



the works of God. That God is said to have rested on the sev- 
enth day, is one of scores of instances in which the sacred writers 
accommodate to our finite faculties, their representations of the 
mode of divine thinking, speaking, and acting. Objections to 
such iepresentations have been made, on the ground that they 
are debasing to God, who is thus made subject to our passions 
and infirmities. But those who make them can find no better 
mode of presenting intelligent views of the divine nature and 
attributes, and the explanation given ought to relieve this and 
all similar passages, of all liableness to any other than absurd 
criticism. 

That man was created full-grown in body, and not an infant 
or a child, is not only consistent with all else of the divine work, 
but commends itself as highly proper; and that he was not left 
an overgrown child in intellect, is at once, agreeable to the 
analogy of the physical perfection of the universe, and suitable to 
the duties on which he was required immediately to enter. 

(3.) The origin of evil is the dread mystery of time, the u abyss 
into which nearly all theological difficulties at last disembogue 
themselves," the enigma compared with which, and without 
which, all other enigmas are trifles. The Scripture account of 
this, both as to mode and fact, is the great stumbling-block of 
skepticism. 

A few words as to the agents in this awful drama, are suffi- 
cient. He who could create a world, could endow the serpent 
with speech, and subject it to the influence of a spiritual being. 
How the animal previously moved, or with what physical changes 
it was affected after the Fall, are useless questions. That it was 
peculiarly doomed, in the curse which fell on all creation, is ac- 
cordant with analogy, in that the irresponsible instruments or 
agents in man's sin, often suffer more than others, the penalties 
of his guilt. The permission to Satan to tempt Adam, no more 
involves God in his sin, than does the existence of a state of trial 
in this world, implicate its author in the evils which it may or 
does occasion. Of all tests, that submitted to man was the 
fairest. There was the least temptation, counterbalanced by the 
heaviest penalty. So far as we can know, had man been con- 
stituted impeccable, or subjected to no test of obedience, there 
had been no way in which he could have evinced virtuous prin- 
ciple. Angels are the only other intelligent creatures of whom 
we have any acount, and as they sinned, we infer they were 



390 POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



also put upon a probation. Man was either constituted as 
alleged, and fell, or constituted a sinner, which no consistent 
deist will aver. It becomes those who object to the Scripture rep- 
resentation, to show some other mode of constituting a free agent, 
competent to divine power and consistent with the divine wisdom ; 
and this cannot be done till man can measure omnipotence and 
compass infinity. 

There are other difficulties connected with this subject, which 
lie back of Revelation, and whose solution is involved in that of 
a mystery already mentioned, — God's government of free agents, 
so that his decree does not impair their freedom, nor affect their 
responsibility. Thus, why is there any evil? Did God prede- 
termine it? Was his purpose or plan frustrated or fulfilled by its 
entrance? How is man responsible for what he was created to 
perform? The answer to these, and many other similar ques- 
tions, easily asked, has been given. Our reason has no materials 
for the decision. These matters are above it. Our province is 
to vindicate what God has revealed, by showing its congruity with 
the discoveries and teachings of reason, exercised on the constitu- 
tion and course of nature. Here are found evidences of man's 
fall and its consequences, palpable to its perceptions : and here 
are held forth hopes of a possible remedy, though reason, unpro- 
vided with the means of accurate knowledge, may fail to desig- 
nate the precise character of that remedy. 

Along with abundant indications of a primitive beauty and 
goodness in the natural world, there are equally clear indications, 
that the beautiful and the good have been marred and defaced. 
In the midst of order we observe disorder. Seasons, suns and 
systems, the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, are gov- 
erned by wise and fixed laws. Yet storm and tempest, plague 
and pestilence, desolated shores, vast and arid deserts, rock-bound 
coasts, shipwreck and hurricane, proclaim this earth to be the 
object and scene of some potent curse. The extinction of the 
generator is the price of reproduction. The existence of the off- 
spring is often purchased by the death of the parent. Adversity 
is the fruit of prosperity. As each day closes in the darkness of 
night, so ruin and decay, with effacing fingers, follow loveliness 
and health. We seem to tread on the withered leaves of a de- 
parted life. Though the world is filled with the monuments of 
divine power and wisdom, they are monuments in ruins. Though 
we are surrounded with proofs of creative energy and consum- 



POP'JLAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



391 



mate skill, Death stalks forth among them, the king of terrors, 
the inexorable tyrant and great destroyer, and after marking all 
that is man's with his withering touch, prepared to lay man him- 
self under the dust of the ruins among which he has lived. 

In the moral world, we behold scenes mournfully analogous. 
We see man, the object of a benevolence that never tires in be- 
stowing the bounties of a providence which never fails. He is 
endowed with faculties, which, unclouded by prejudice, undebased 
by vice and undegraded by ignorance, testify for God, lighten the 
path of duty, and constitute him, in the lowest stages of moral ex- 
istence, a religious being. Yet he evinces a constant proclivity to 
evil. His reason disordered, understanding darkened, imagination 
polluted and taste depraved, he no longer delights in the beautiful 
and the good. He becomes an alien from God. Acknowledging 
the goodness of the law written on his heart, he perversely violates 
its precepts. God's name becomes his bye-word, and God's nature 
his abhorrence. He is subject to pain. As his body has become 
a machinery of torture, his mind becomes a fountain of woe. His 
plans are crossed and his prospects blighted. However explained, 
he feels that God opposes him. Rarely " amidst the darkest fears 
and deepest jealousies" has he discarded from his religion the idea 
of a benevolent being, and invested his divinity with the terrific 
attributes of inveterate malignity and cruelty, yet so much has fear 
prevailed over hope, that he has worshipped the devil. Fearing, 
but not trusting, he ceases to pray for favor and deprecates wrath. 
He feels that though a depository of great power, he is watched, 
curbed and restrained. His very liberty becomes his ruin. For 
he has not only separated from God, but divided himself. Now 
accusing and now excusing, his thoughts alternately darken hope 
and mitigate despair, neither the light of the one ever totally 
extinguished, nor the horrors of the other totally relieved. He is 
guilty of what he condemns. He fails to perform what he approves. 
He begins to seek God, and ends in a vain conceit of his virtue. 
In dreams of vanity he flatters himself that he is pure, and wakes 
to loathe his pollution. He lies amidst the ruins of the world, like 
a rock in the debris of some mighty precipice, in whose rugged 
and misshapen form you can trace the lineaments of its origin. So 
man is separated from his God. A gulf wide as eternity and deep 
as perdition divides them. Well did Pascal write, "What a chi- 
mera is man, — what a chaos of contradictions ! A judge of all 
things, yet a worm of earth j the depository of truth, yet a med- 



392 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



ley of uncertainties; the glory and scandal of the universe. Tf 
he exalt himself, I humble him. If he humble himself, I exalt 
him, and press him with his own inconsistencies till he compre- 
hends himself to be an incomprehensible monster." 

This view of man as an individual, presents a type of the con- 
dition of the race. Now amiable instincts and generous impulses 
furnish scenes of domestic happiness, social peace, political secu- 
rity and general prosperity. Benevolence feeds the hungry poor, 
comforts the distressed and alleviates the severities of adversit}^ 
Anon, conjugal affection degenerates into idolatry, or is drowned 
in selfishness. Parental tenderness becomes foolish weakness, or 
is extinguished by overbearing tyranny. Filial confidence softens 
into servility or dies in ingratitude. The covenants of friendship 
conceal crime and perpetuate villainy, or are sundered by treachery. 
The institutions of religion dwindle to trifling superstitions, or be- 
come the engines of spiritual despotism, and the cloaks of hypoc- 
risy. Liberty w T axes into licentiousness, order wanes to anarchy, 
and government turns into oppression. The exactions of avarice 
take the place of benevolence, the assumptions of arrogance succeed 
the condescensions of humility, and "Man's inhumanity to man 
makes countless millions mourn." Angels weep, and hell rejoices. 

But amidst all these disasters in the natural and moral 
world, both furnish evidences of tendencies to reconstruction. 
Science and art with their thousand hands are ministering to the 
disorders of nature and rebuilding this dilapidated temple with its 
own ruins. They convert poison into medicine, and of rivers and 
seas, which divided men, make highways of commerce. From 
the disembowelled earth are drawn the mighty wrecks of long 
forgotten convulsions, to furnish fuel and light, the implements of 
husbandry and machinery, which increase the fertility and remedy 
the defects of nature, and materials to adorn and beautify this 
renovated structure of man's dwelling-place. The ice-bound 
streams of the north become mines of wealth, and the burning 
sands and sickening fens of the tropics, furnish refreshing fruits 
and abundant food. The mighty agencies, which in nature's lab- 
oratory, rend rocks, burst mountains and ingulph cities, r.re trained 
by man, to bring nations together and erect the vast marts of 
commerce. He not only disarms the lightning of its terrors, but 
subjects it to the purposes of his interest and pleasure. 

In a total ruin all is desolation. But God has not deserted man. 
He has not suffered all the impressions of his hatred to evil and 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



393 



delight in goodness to be effaced from the human heart. The 
setting sun tinges with his departing rays the fleecy c^oud and the 
mountain top, showing he has not set forever, and auspicious of a 
morning. So, though God has for a time forsaken the moral world, 
he has left behind him a train of light. Man still yearns for something 
better. He may be in a prison house of punishment, but it is one 
of discipline, not entirely of vengeance. His history is a history 
of sin and error, but a history too, of struggles for conformity to 
the light left to guide his path. Failed he has, most memorably 
and miserably, yet that he struggles, proves that all is not lost. 

Now all this accords with Revelation. Open this book, and what 
man has learned, slowly and laboriously, from the observations 
and experiences of six thousand years, read by his reason, is here 
unfolded in a few sentences. God's curse fell on Adam, and 
on the earth, though sinless, for man's sake. It fell on all 
mankind, and the sufferings of infancy, pain, disease, travail and 
sorrow, the train closed by death, man's greatest evil, have been 
our sad inheritance. Whether men call this "imputation," or, 
sneering at the term, prefer some other, the facts of the record, 
thus attested by the deductions of reason from those of human 
history, remain unimpeachable. Prejudice may storm, but cannot 
overthrow them. It is useless to argue against them, sinful tc 
cavil at them, absurd and puerile to ridicule them. 

Here too is the promise of a remedy, intimated to man in the very 
hour of his curse ; and the earnest expectation of the creature, 
the natural world, though with the moral, groaning and travailing, 
as in the throes of some mighty agony, seems, by the deductions 
of the same reason, awaiting the promised manifestation of the 
sons of God, and ardently longing for a deliverance from the long 
and grievous bondage of corruption.* 

Attested thus, by the state of things in which we live, this brief 
but pregnant passage in the third chapter of Genesis, instead of 
sinking into a contemptible myth, or a baseless imposture, rises in 
all the grandeur, sublimity and power of a most stupendous truth, 
entitled to our confidence for its lineaments of inspiration, as to 
our veneration for its attributes of antiquity. 

8. Some object to Christianity on account of the particular 

* For the train of thought in the last two or three paragraphs, and for a few ex- 
pressions, I acknowledge my obligations to the very ingenious and interesting work of 
Mr. McCosh " On Divine Government." in which the views here presented are ably 
and fully set forth. 



394 POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



remedy of the gospel. It might be supposed that a candid and 
impartial objector to Revelation on account of its doctrine of 
man's ruin, would find some relief to the difficulty in the provision 
of a remedy. But either by reason of ignorance of its nature, or 
wilful blindness to the truth, the scheme of redemption has been 
the subject of severe criticism. 

(1.) As in respect of all doctrines, for whose discovery we are 
indebted to Revelation, it is peculiarly true of this, that antece- 
dently to such Revelation, men could not be competent judges. 
They could form no opinion on the nature of a remedial scheme, 
the necessity for the particular agency of a Mediator, his charac- 
ter or offices. 

(2.) It is also obvious, that the incarnation, resurrection, the 
combination of human and divine agency in the Saviour's suffer- 
ings, and their duration as too long or too short, and similar 
topics, are above our comprehension, and objections applicable to 
such, are as absurd, as the objections of a child, to the plans, prin- 
ciples and dealings of a father, while yet too young to appreciate 
or comprehend them. 

(3.) Of such objections to the gospel remedy as are legitimate 
subjects of our discussion, we offer a few specimens, with sum- 
mary replies. 

The manner in which the remedy has been prepared, has been 
criticised, as presenting God reduced to the necessity of using a 
long series of intricate means to bring it about. 

As to the facts of this scheme having been gradually and slowly 
developed, connected with human agencies, in the way of cause 
and effect, we well know that this accords with the course of na- 
ture. Vegetables and animal bodies grow by degrees. The 
mind increases in power. One series of means subserves another, 
and so the whole course of nature is progressive. Thus has the 
scheme of Redemption been developed. But its efficiency was not 
postponed to its full enactment, for its blessings flowed to man 
before, as well as after, the incarnation of the Son of God. 

The system of a Mediator and a mediation is alleged to be ir- 
rational. Now it has been seen, that by the findings of observa- 
tion and experience, there is, at least, a presumption raised, that 
some remedial system might be provided for man's spiritual as 
for his physical disabilities. And pursuing our reading of nature 
farther, though never discovering, because the book never con- 
fined it, tha*, such a remedy would be effected by a Mediator, yet 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



395 



we can see, now it has been published in God's other volume, that 
it is not discordant with the lessons of nature. We owe our birth, 
nurture, physical, mental and moral culture, to the various medi- 
ating agents, by which God has communicated such blessings to 
men. A reflecting mind may extend this illustration almost in- 
definitely. And if God, in his visible government, thus uses such 
agencies, it is at least credible, that he might adopt the principle 
in his spiritual government. There is certainly everything other 
than objectionable, in the idea, that as God has, by such agencies, 
provided for remedying the defects and neutralizing or removing 
the evils of this present disordered world, furnishing means of re- 
lief from calamities, as pain, disease, and the like, which men had 
induced by negligence, perversity, or stupidity; by a similar kind 
of agency he tenders the means of deliverance from that, which, 
to a sober and well-balanced mind, must appear the greatest of 
evils, sin and its consequences. This is surely a pleasing and 
amiable view of the Divine Being, that he should select his Son 
to effect a purpose so replete with blessings to man and glory to 
God. 

The sacrifice of the innocent Son of God, in the place of the 
insignificant inhabitants of this little planet, is alleged to be un- 
worthy of a just God, and that he should be as well pleased with 
the sufferings of the innocent as the guilty, is declared contradic- 
tory to the dictates of reason. The objections here presented are 
connected with each other and with one great fact, the death of 
Christ, in such a manner, that to avoid repetition they may be 
considered somewhat together. 

The Scriptures represent the death of Christ, in the light of a 
sacrifice, in which he, in his mediatorial character and united na- 
ture, as a Priest, offers his human nature as a victim. Whether 
of human or divine origin, sacrifices are of very ancient date. 
Either with or without prayers, confessions and thanksgivings, 
they have constituted, in some form, a prominent part of the reli- 
gious worship of all nations, who had a religion. If of human 
origin, there can be no objection to the Christian scheme as re- 
quiring a sacrifice, any more than to others. If of divine, this 
scheme then accords, in this principle, with the earliest lessons of 
primitive religion imparted to man. In either case, the objection 
applies to all religions, and if valid in one, is valid in all, and 
leaves us with none. 

The involuntary suffering of an innocent being without ade- 



396 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



quate cause is wrong, and though, were such a being rational, the 
wrong is aggravated, yet the principle of justice is infringed by 
the sufferings of any such, rational or irrational. The Deist 
might, on this view, well object to the sacrifices of the heathen, 
which inflicted suffering on innocent brutes, with no adequate 
cause. But the suffering inflicted on a voluntary victim is not 
injurious, and conflicts with no principle of justice. Jesus Christ 
was a voluntaiy victim, and as those sacrifices of brutes directed 
under the Old Testament economy were typical of His, and 
ordered by God, there was an adequate cause for the suffering. 
Thus the Scripture doctrine of sacrifice is not liable to cavil, how- 
ever that of any other religious system may be. 

Though relatively insignificant in enlarged views of Gods intelli- 
gent universe, yet since man has formed, confessedly, an object 
of great interest to his Creator, in this world, there can be no force 
in an objection to a scheme, because it represents him as an objoct 
of a more intense interest, in so grave a matter as his spiritual 
and eternal welfare. Especially is this reasonable, when we 
connect with it, the inspired assurance, that the transactions in 
which this interest for man have been evinced, are designed, and 
will ultimately prove, to be contributive, in a most eminent de- 
gree, to declare the divine glory. Among other manifestations, we 
are assured, that these transactions display alike the evil of sin, 
God's hatred to it, and his love to sinners, and our reason leaves 
us in no doubt, that all this has been effected in a more clear and 
efficient method, by so much as the dignity and value of the sac- 
rifice have been greater. While too, we see that in the course 
of nature, the innocent often suffer for the guilty, and that this 
principle is of very common and extensive prevalence in human 
government, as in the well-known laws of suretyship, we can 
have no valid occasion for objecting, that in view of honoring the 
divine law and sustaining inviolate, the principles of the divine 
government, God should accept the sufferings of the innocent in- 
stead of the guilty, as equally adequate to satisfying the claims 
of justice. 

Finally, it is querulously asked, why all this array of means ? 
Why may not sinful men be at once forgiven, and made holy and 
happy? Such questions are easily asked, and on superficial views 
of the divine character and government, not easily answered. It 
is very useless for us to speculate on the physical possibilities of 
omnipotence. By reason and Revelation alike, we are taught to 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



397 



believe, that the perfection of the divine being involves the har- 
mony of the divine attributes. God is a moral governor. We feel 
persuaded, that as such, he must govern by just and holy laws; 
and that his government, as well as every other and more than 
every other, forfeits our confidence if the laws are not executed. 
But as all men are sinners, justice requires their punishment. As 
no one can rightly estimate the heinousness of any one sin, or the 
importance of any one particular vindication of the law, we are 
compelled to assent to the righteousness of a principle, more or 
less acknowledged in human governments, that, "he who offends 
in one point is guilty of all" — that is, obnoxious to punishment. 
Violated law must be honored. The subsequent obedience of the 
transgressor cannot atone for the crime, nor can suffering alone 
repair the injury inflicted by disobedience. But. man fails to obey. 
His sufferings, consistent with his happiness are ineffectual. The 
law violated is that of infinite holiness, of the supreme ruler. 
That offences are aggravated by considerations of the relations 
of the party offending to the party offended, is too plain to need 
an illustration. But beyond the highest disproportion between 
any man and any earthly power, that between man and God 
stretches with an infinite extent. Man's suffering then, to meet 
the just demands of a violated law of God, must involve his utter 
and hopeless ruin. If then sin be forgiven as proposed, the justice 
and holiness of God are dethroned, the harmony of the di- 
vine attributes is destroyed, and the moral power of the divine 
government impaired. Hence the necessity for this "array of 
means." Hence the necessity, in order that man may be forgiven, 
be made holy and happy, that a way be devised to satisfy divine 
justice. Now in the gospel scheme, mercy and truth are met to- 
gether. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Justice 
and holiness shine most conspicuously on that cross, where God 
spared not his Son, innocent as he was, when he took the sinner's 
place ; while there too, fall with his blood, the richer drops of di- 
vine mercy and compassion. The justice here illustrated is sterner 
than, if every sinner had died without mercy, and the mercy richer, 
than had every sinner been pardoned without justice. Mercy is 
unfolded, in God's so loving the world, that he gave his Son, and 
justice, in that no other than the costly blood of the incar- 
nate Son of God could appease its holy wrath. Mercy secures the 
transfer of the sinner's guilt to his surety, while justice rigidly 



S9'8 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



exacts from the surety the full price of the sinner's pardon. Mercy 
providing a complete righteousness for the sinner, 

" Takes the robe the Saviour wrought, 
And casts it all around," 

" All God's vengeance pours 
Upon the Saviour's head." 

Mercy inclines the ear of God to the prayer of the penitent, pleading 
in the Saviour's name, while justice awakens the sword of divine 
anger against him who was God's equal. In fine, mercy, rich, free 
and full, appears in forgiving millions of sins, and justice, holy, strict 
and inexorable in refusing pardon for the least without the ato- 
ning sacrifice of the Son of God. Equally conspicuous are the 
divine wisdom and power. Man lost beyond all hope and all 
remedy, by his own efforts, afforded an object of pity to holy beings. 
Angels may well be supposed to have beheld the scene with feel- 
ings of mingled compassion and wonder. To restore the race to 
favor consistently with justice, no scheme ever imagined by man 
was competent, none within the reach of less than omnipotence 
could avail. Not only must the divine attributes be harmonized, 
but man's nature must be renovated. In the gospel, the latter is 
effected, as well as the former. Not only was the law of God 
honored and his justice satisfied, by the Saviour's sufferings and 
obedience, but the gift of a renewing, sanctifying spirit was pro- 
cured. By his agency man is made " willing in the day of God's 
power." Convinced of sin, he is led to repentance and faith. He 
is new created. Old things pass away. His corrupt propensities 
and his inveterate depravity, are gradually destroyed, his rebellion 
subdued, and his nature averse to holiness, renewed and sanctified 
and made fit for the holy employments of a glorious abode. 

" 'Twas great to speak this world from naught, 
'Twas greater to redeem." 

Thus in a word, do we discover in the gospel plan the divine at- 
tributes harmoniously co-operating. Wisdom to devise, power to 
execute, justice to punish, mercy to forgive, equally conspicuous 
with the holiness which is intolerant of sin, the love which delights 
in the sinner's salvation, the truth which binds to the fulfilment of 
threatening, and the goodness which inclines to the performance 
of promises. Man is raised from the dregs of pollution and the 



while justice 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 399 



verge of perdition, to the eternal purity and unfailing security of 
heavenly happiness. Earth is filled with the blessings and Heaven 
with the glories of this great redemption. 

"Oh the sweet wonders of that cross 
Where God the Saviour loved and died, 
Her richest life my spirit draws 
From his dear wounds and bleeding side." 

9. The limited publication of Christianity, and its limited preva- 
lence and power as consequences of this, have frequently been 
urged as inconsistent with its divine origin and its claims to be re- 
garded as a necessary and universal blessing. 

(1.) If Christianity be tendered to us, accompanied by reliable 
evidence, the deprivation of others, no more mars its purity, than 
invalidates its evidences. Moreover we are incompetent judges of 
the divine procedure. Apparent inconsistencies in human gov- 
ernments, as we have had occasion to see as to God's natural 
government of the world, are often removed by more accurate and 
extensive information. So may it be, that there are valid reasons 
for a state of things, apparently inconsistent with God's power, 
wisdom or benevolence or all. 

(2.) Indeed none will require the universal reception of Chris- 
tianity, as either an evidence of its divine origin or an argument 
for its purity ; for where it has been fully published, it has not been 
universally received, and unless free agency were destroyed by an 
enforcement of its claims, in the present state of things, we see no 
reason to expect such a reception. This conceded, whether a 
minority or majority have received it, is not very material. But 
we have reason to believe, that a much larger number will ulti- 
mately appear to have been benefited than the objection intimates. 
The present and the past generations of men, may constitute a 
minority of the whole race. What are yet to be the effects of 
Christianity we know not. Probably they will exceed all former 
experience. When then, to Christian adults, we add the vast 
millions of infants interested in the atoning blood of Christ and 
the healing power of the divine Spirit, it is possible, a vast majority 
of the human family will have been found participants in the 
blessings of the gospel. 

And, after all, it remains to be seen Avhether the causes of the 
alleged " inconsistency" are intrinsic evils of the Christian scheme. 

(3,) Admitting that a formal and particular publication of re- 



400 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



vealed religion was limited to one nation under the old dispensa- 
tion, and has been generally restricted to a few, under the new, 
we ourselves may see a propriety and justice in both cases. We 
have abundant reason for believing, that sufficiently full disclo- 
sures of the divine will were made to our first parents and to Noah 
and his family. That men not liking to retain the knowledge of 
God, lost, by perversity and negligence, the advantages of revealed 
truth, may be read in the progressions of every system of idolatry, 
as well as in the inspired record. Now, God deals with his crea- 
tures as moral agents, and provides neither irresistible evidences 
nor means for preserving to them the knowledge of his will. Be- 
cause of this tendency to apostasy and deterioration, on the prin- 
ciple already indicated, he selected one nation as the depositary 
of his truth, and by restrictive laws and peculiar institutions, sep- 
arated it from the permanent taint of that idolatry, to which in 
common with other nations, it ever manifested a proclivity. 

As to the Christian dispensation, God was pleased to leave to 
man a discovery of its necessity, by an experience of his moral 
destitution, and when the Gospel was promulgated, we can easily 
see that it was not only consistent with the divine procedure, 
in other things, but was better calculated to preserve the purity 
of the system, and promote sincerity in its advocates, that it should 
meet opposition and be subjected to a rigid scrutiny. By too sud- 
den a change from paganism to Christianity, universally occurring, 
there would have been danger of a fatal and general corruption 
of the system, while the tests of sincerity withdrawn, there might 
have been a fearful prevalence of hypocrisy. We reason from 
facts. At a later period, when the civil power was substituted for 
the pulpit, a«nd earthly rewards for eternal, these results followed; 
and that to such extent, that all are accustomed to regard the 
primitive, as the age of the greatest Christian purity, from whose 
history we derive our lessons of the true nature and power of the 
gospel. 

(4.) It may be true, that the Christian religion does not secure 
the perfection of its followers, in moral character, Avhile on earth, 
nor has it preserved among them entire unity of opinion. Many 
of its professed votaries, including ministers, have disgraced human 
nature, as well as Christianity by immoral lives, and the exhibition 
of cruel and persecuting tempers, while the wars waged, professedly 
in behalf of religion, have been distinguished for ferocity and cm- 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



401 



elty. But objections founded on these statements lose all their 
force, when the statements themselves are lightly considered. 

Though taught that, at death, believers are made perfect in 
holiness, yet the general tone of Scripture doctrine, precept and 
biography prove that the production of a comparative holiness is 
the extent of power on individuals, claimed for the Christian sys- 
tem in this world ; and that it rather aims to carry us through a 
state of discipline, preparatory and subservient to one of perfection 
in heaven, where we shall no more see through a glass darkly, or 
know in part, but shall see God and be made like him. 

The divisions cf Christians are no more, nor more important, 
than reasoning from other things, we might presume. Laws and 
constitutions, though carefully drawn by the wisest men, education, 
medicine, agriculture, natural and moral science, and even mathe- 
matics, are all subjects, on which either as to their principles, 
modes of exhibition or application, great diversity of opinion exists. 
And it is observable, that the acrimony, zeal, and pertinacity 
which are evinced by sectaries, are usually in the direct ratio of 
the general importance of a subject, or the inverse ratio of that 
of its specialities. But no one pretends that division or controversy 
imply that its subject is one of doubt or uncertainty, or that any 
system is responsible for the variety of opinions of which it is the 
occasion. This is more frequently owing to the influence of ex- 
trinsic causes. There is more agreement among Christians on 
the fundamental propositions of Christianity, than can be found 
among the adherents of any other system of moral truth. 

But divisions on some subjects are ascribed to a want of clear- 
ness in the Scriptures. The Trinity, infant baptism, observance 
of Sunday, and the constitution and powers of the church, are 
specimens of such subjects. It will ordinarily be found, that these 
differences are ascribable to defects in plans of study, or power of 
reasoning, or the influences of education or prejudices, or all com- 
bined. It is admitted, that all subjects are not revealed with the 
same clearness. On no fundamental topic is there any want, and 
yet the deliverances of Scripture on these, are not all in the same 
mode. We find that the causes of difference mentioned, out of 
the question, very few who evince a right apprehension of the ac- 
knowledged and plain truths of Scripture, fail to agree on such 
subjects as the doctrine of the Trinity and the observance of Sun- 
day. God has endowed us with faculties and furnished us with 
facilities for collecting the scattered rays of truth, on all important 

26 



402 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



topics, and by scattering them on some, has evinced his wisdom, 
as thereby a more diligent study of the whole is secured. On 
those of less importance, the differences involve the rejection or 
uncertainty of nothing essential to the spiritual character of the 
system. 

No cause ought to be judged by its corruptions and abuses. 
Immoralities of Christians cannot be charged on the system, till 
shown to proceed from its principles. But the purity of these prin- 
ciples is admitted in the charge, for Christians are criticised as much 
or more, for want of conformity to the peculiar precepts of their 
own religion, as those common to it and the religion of nature. 

If persecution were of the. spirit of Christianity, where this most 
prevails that would most abound. But the reverse is notoriously 
true. Religious wars have uniformly resulted from the acts and 
motives of unchristian men, and history attests, that those minis- 
ters or others, who have become tyrants over the souls and bodies 
of their fellows, erected stakes and gibbets, founded the infernal 
dungeons and contrived the cruel racks of the Inquisition, in other 
respects, forfeited all claim to be regarded as Christians. Isolated 
instances may be found, when under the influence of evil exam- 
ples and depraved public sentiment, or driven by oppression, men 
of undoubted Christian principle, have turned aside from rectitude 
in these respects, but persecution, and every harsh and cruel mode 
of propagating Christianity, have ever been condemned by those, 
who in every age, have enjoyed the best reputation as Christians ; 
and the Bible not only does not teach, but most expressly de- 
nounces such practices. Our Saviour's admonition of the effect 
of his doctrine in producing divisions and hatreds among the near- 
est friends, was a candid prediction of the harsh reception it would 
find in the world. Peculiar duties, as the agents of heaven in 
destroying idolaters, were delegated to the Jews ; but no precept 
of the Old Testament can be adduced to show, that they were 
ever instructed to propagate their faith, by any other than the 
methods used for propagating all truth, rational conviction and 
persuasion. As to the imputations on the character of the Chris- 
tian ministry, without indelicate boasting, we may challenge the 
world to produce a body, which, as such, presents a greater num- 
ber of serious, self-denying, laborious, and upright men than may 
be found in the protestant clergy of the United States. And it 
deserves to be mentioned, that in respect of the moral character 
and influence of the Christian Church anc ministry, both are to be 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



403 



regarded as something other than the Christian scheme, especially 
in countries, whereby the unnatural alliance of Church and State, 
the true genius of Christianity has been mournfully marred. 

It must be admitted by candid and intelligent men, that the 
tone of morality has ever been higher in Christian, than in Mo- 
hammedan and Pagan lands, and of Christian lands, higher in 
those, where the principles of Christianity have been most exten- 
sively diffused. Though practical religion may have been cor- 
rupted in later times, the lives of primitive Christians, when temp- 
tations to hypocrisy were few, and to apostasy, many,' were monu- 
ments of their faith in the estimate of enemies. Then, as now, 
Christians were not inmates of jails, and victims for gibbets, as 
evil-doers. It must be admitted, that Christianity provides better 
for those classes, which most need moral benefits, than any other 
system ; for while philosophy neglected the poor, and after ages 
of speculation and scores of schools, and sects, and systems had 
passed away, the multitude still lay neglected and degraded, Chris- 
tianity has succeeded in enlightening the illiterate, comforting the 
distressed, and in healing the maladies, easing the burdens, and 
enlarging the enjoyments of men in every grade of penury and 
sorrow, of all nations, ages, and circumstances. It must be ad- 
mitted, that it has won trophies of its moral power from people of 
every color, clime, and condition. The Moor, the Hindoo, the 
Chinese, and the Hottentot, the deluded victims of imposture, and 
the degraded servants of apostasy and superstition, have been re- 
leased from their bonds of ignorance and vice, by its influence ; 
and from hovels, dungeons, and manacles, have issued the songs 
of praise, inspired by its promises. 

To the whole of this objection, that Christianity has been of 
limited publication, prevalence and power, three considerations 
may be offered in reply, which, at least, greatly impair its force. 

(1.) Men who never hear the gospel are not injured by its pub- 
lication to others. God accepts or condemns men according to 
what they have, and not according to what they have not. They 
will be judged by the law written on their hearts, and not by the 
gospel they never knew. True, by reason of man's wilful blind- 
ness and perversity, that law conducts none to heaven, and as 
ignorance is no reason why men should not learn, or others teach 
them, so moral darkness is no reason they should not seek the 
light, and Christians endeavor to impart it. But the rrisery of 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



their condition is not that we have the gospel, but that they have 
not improved the light they had. 

(2.) And when it is still urged, that the gospel has not been 
given to them as well as to us, it must be conceded, that judging 
by the constitution of nature, we had little reason to expect any- 
thing otherwise. 

The advantages of soil, climate, commerce and civilization, are 
very unequally distributed. As no two persons can be found ex- 
actly alike in physical constitution, so no two individuals possess 
precisely the same privileges ; but we find an endless variety in 
respect of physical form and strength, learning, taste and temper. 
A survey of the world will show, that the greatest blessings are 
possessed by the few. Now as God has been under no obligation 
to confer like blessings on all, or certain blessings on any, his dis- 
tinguishing some men with advantages, does not impeach the 
divine justice or benevolence in withholding them from others. 
These last are not less favored than had the others received noth- 
ing. No more was God obliged to confer the benefits of revela- 
tion on any persons whatever, since all were undeserving, unless 
it be contended that he had made man at first without the knowl- 
edge necessary to fulfil the end of his being, which, of course, no 
consistent deist will aver. And as in the former case, so in this, 
those from whom the gospel has been withheld are not less 
favored than had others not received it. Indeed, the divine pro- 
vision for man's spiritual welfare, seems conducted on the princi- 
ple by which that for his temporal welfare has been made. God 
has provided in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms a great vari- 
ety of medicines, and has furnished the vast storehouse of nature 
with materials for the various useful ai ts, which contribute to our 
safety, convenience and comfort. He has also endowed us with 
the physical and mental faculties by which we may make these 
provisions available. Yet we find that in his providence, long 
periods have elapsed before some very important remedies and 
valuable discoveries in the sciences and arts have become known 
to man. Thousands are still unaffected by them. Owing to in- 
dolence and ignorance, prejudice and passion, it has often been 
only after long labor, unsuccessful experiments, contempt, dis- 
putes, divisions, controversies, doubts and rejections, that some of 
them have obtained reception and success. Many who greatly 
need them, cannot be brought to appreciate them. To millions 
they are never offered. Others again derive no benefit from them 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



405 



on account of some circumstances which countervail their effects. 
In short, we thus see that these provisions are neither certain, 
perfect, nor universal. So has been the course of Providence in 
respect of a revelation. And yet in one aspect, our illustration 
fails. Christianity has not been left hidden for man's discovery or 
invention. Though not published to every successive apostate 
generation, and, for reasons already offered, a particular mode of 
revelation was adopted, yet from the earliest ages, the knowledge 
of its material truths has been in the world. Before the Saviour 
came, men were taught to believe on him who was promised, and 
since he appeared, the gospel has been offered, at various periods, 
to a great part of the world's population, not, it is true, in every 
century, but in the course of the eighteen which have elapsed, 
and especially during the first and second. If its prevalence and 
power have been limited, man and not its author is blamable, 
and this is peculiarly true in our day and country. 

(3.) If our recurrence to the constitution of nature be deemed 
unfair, because the interests affected are by no means equal to 
those of religion, or if it be said that the provisions for man's tem- 
poral welfare are scattered very generally in some sort, we may 
furnish in the case of natural religion a consideration which 
fully relieves us of all pressure from such allegations. We have 
seen that however published, by its evidences being everywhere 
patent, in the providence of God, its prevalence has been less ex- 
tensive than that of revealed religion. We mean the prevalence 
of those truths which constitute its claims to be called a religion. 
Its power has been far less exemplified. Scarcely a dozen deists 
have ever agreed fully on its principles. None have fully illus- 
trated them by consistent lives. Hypocrisy is as glaring in its 
votaries, as in professed Christians. Some have doubted whether 
any traces of it could be found in the world but for Christianity. 
Certainly, and it deserves remark, since the Christian era, its de- 
velopments in other than Christian lands, have been very limited. 
Its temples adorn no cities. It has neither ministers nor altars, 
nor rites, nor ordinances, nor worship. Heaven, earth and sea 
may proclaim with voiceless eloquence, " The hand that made us 
is divine," but man makes no response. Natural creation may be 
vocal with harmonies of praise, but man's voice is unheard in the 
swelling anthem. What has mere natural religion ever done? 
The trophies of its triumphs are yet to be seen in reformed socie- 
ties, happy families, patient, meek, humble and peaceable men 



406 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



and women. Husbands and wives, parents and children, masters 
and servants are yet to be f jund, who have learned their duties 
from its precepts, and practised them under its sanctions. On the 
greatest of all topics in any religion, it is silent. By no sugges- 
tions of reason, no analogies of nature, no records of experience, 
no monuments of earth, blackened and withered by the curse of 
God, no pealing thunder, no convulsions of the elements, no smil- 
ing landscape, no blushing beauties of spring, brilliant glories of 
summer, or sombre shades of autumn, in short, by no voice from 
heaven, earth or air, has it ever taught how God could be just 
and yet the sinner saved. In no dungeon of despair has it cast a 
ray of hope. In no hovel of poverty has it left a crumb of com- 
fort. In no scene of sorrow has it mingled its joys. No widow's 
heart has ever welcomed its consolations. No orphan's tears have 
been dried by its hands. Athwart no dark and gloomy tomb of 
infancy have its beams been shed. From no bed of pain and 
weakness, disease and death, have been heard the accents of its 
peace, or the notes of its triumphs. No portals of perdition have 
been closed by its power. No heaven of glory opened to its voice. 
If Christianity is to be despised and neglected as limited and fee- 
ble, much more must the boasted religion of nature be discarded, 
and from the toils and dangers of a fatherless world, he must 
launch forth on the dread Unknown of Futurity, without rudder 
or compass, pilot or sail, in the frail and foundering wreck of 
Atheism. 

We conclude, 1. That as on those topics, which are common 
to the course of nature and Revelation, objections to the latter 
are often relieved by showing that they apply to the former, we 
are justified in receiving Revelation, even although objections 
derived from other sources, as the apparent contradictions of 
science or our fallible apprehensions of the contents of the Bible, 
may still exist. For as we receive the course of nature to be 
from God, notwithstanding the existence of some very grave dif- 
ficulties, on the general evidence afforded us, so we may believe 
Revelation credible. And as in the natural world, the same 
faculties of investigation and the same phenomena, from which 
great discoveries have been made and great objections removed, 
have been long possessed by men before such results were at- 
tained, so it is credible, that as time rolls on, existing difficulties 
in Revelation, may give way to the investigations which may 
yet be made. This has actually occurred in time past. We should 



POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



407 



then, on the whole, very modestly urge objections, and very 
cautiously permit them to influence our minds. 

2. That while the existence of difficulties is acknowledged, yet 
there is such an appearance of truth in Christianity, and all the 
objections are counterbalanced by such strong evidences in its 
favor, we ought rather to suspect such difficulties are removable, 
than the contrary, and be urged to diligence in prosecuting our 
inquiries. True or false, Christianity must possess some in- 
herent vitality. It has survived the rise and fall of numberless 
other systems, as well as numberless disasters, affecting itself. 
That appearance of truth has secured for it the suffrages of some 
of the acutest minds, the most profound reasoners, and the most 
splendid geniuses of the world. A system claiming as adherents, 
such men as Milton and Bacon, Locke and Newton, Pascal and 
Leibnitz, Chalmers and Edwards, and still sustained by the best 
men, other than its professed advocates, ought, were no objections 
to its matter capable of clear resolution, to obtain our favorable 
regard. And since all leading objections of this class are con- 
futable, it is but little to ask, that we give it a fair, full, and im- 
partial hearing. 

3. Sound religious knowledge should be carefully imparted to 
the young. Infidelity is doubtless often more of the heart than 
of the head. After all the evidences have been accumulated and 
all objections confuted, still the greatest of all difficulties remains. 
It lies back of reason. Christianity is the foe of sin, which the 
heart is loving. The natural heart opposes it. But if the mind 
be uninformed, darkened by error and blinded by prejudice, the 
avenues to the heart are closed. Let these be kept open by a 
sound and thorough exhibition of the truth of the gospel scheme, 
and then may we hope successfully to approach the heart, and by 
the word of God and the Spirit of his power, subdue its opposition, 
resist its proclivity to evil, and renew its nature. We do not decry 
any kind of learning. But however enlightened on other subjects, 
he knows nothing commensurate with the responsibilities or des- 
tinies of man, who is not wise to salvation. The wisdom which 
is here taught, is alone permanent, pure, and eternally productive. 
The "fear of the Lord" is its beginning; to know Him, love 
him, and see him as he is, its glorious consummation. 

4. Let the blessed results of Christian faith evinced in the lives 
and deaths of its true professors, be contrasted with the unfruit- 
ful works of that darkness which is unrelieved by a ray from 



408 POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



heaven. Let the generous and expansive love, the zealous and 
untiring benevolent labors, and the self-denying and devoted 
faithfulness of the Christian be compared with the selfish and 
contracted tempers, the fierce and vindictive passions, and the 
degrading sensuality or deceitful dealings of the best of heathen. 
Above all, let the peace, security, and triumph, of the feeblest of 
the feeblest sex in the feeblest hours of human frailty, under the 
appalling approaches of man's most terrible enemy, be set against 
the dim uncertainies, the gloomy forebodings and often, fearful 
premonitions of despair, which have signalized the dying hours 
of the caviller and skeptic, and with all objections to his faith, 
reason compels the exclamation, " Let me die the death of the 
righteous, and let my last end be like his. 5 



€§t itjmnlDgiml (Dlijertinn : 

THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 

BY 

KEY. T. Y. MOOKE, 

RICHMOND, VA. 



There are few more striking scenes in ancient history thai: the 
appearance of Paul on Mars Hill, before an audience of Athenians. 
As a mere spectacle, and irrespective of any interest attaching to 
it deeper than an incident in the past, it is impressive, and indeed 
sublime. Before him stretched one of the most magnificent land- 
scapes on which the sun has ever shone. At his feet lay the city 
of Pericles and Phidias, a gem of loveliness, on which art had 
lavished the perfection of her most exquisite development, and 
which nature had set in the glittering beauty of forest, river, and 
sea, shading off its distant bordering with the more rugged gran- 
deur of Pentelicus and Hymettus. Around him gathered the 
sneering Epicurean, the stern Stoic, the phlegmatic Academician, 
the cunning priest, the mercurial citizen, jealous of the glory of 
his peerless metropolis, and the motley rabble who thronged to the 
Areopagus, eager to hear anything new, and ready to break out 
into the fiercest rage, if that novelty should prove unpalatable to 
their whims, their prejudices, or their passions. Confronting that 
restless, excitable, and glaring crowd, stood a solitary individual, 
not heralded by national glory or personal fame, an unknown, 
unfriended man, from an obscure and despised nation, who came 
to fling down the gauntlet to superstitions venerable with an un- 
dated antiquity, gorgeous with all that art could create in the very 
home of her most exquisite perfection, and fortified, at once, by the 
passions of the many and the interests of the few; a man, who 
came to do more than Socrates had ever dared or Plato had ever 
done ; who came to tell the Athenians that they were ignorant on 
the very subject where they considered themselves specially intel- 
ligent, and mistaken on the very points where they were most 
haughtily confident ; and who came to demand their renunciation 
of the sublime teachings of their^renowned schools, and their entire 
submission to the teachings of an unknown and crucified Jew. 
There is something in the intrepid heroism of such a position that 
makes it one of the most striking scenes in ancient history. 



412 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



But it has elements of deeper interest than this. It vvas the 
Christianity of the East confronting the philosophy and civiliza- 
tion of the West ; the reason of man encountering the revelation 
of God ; the opening passage at arms of that great contest between 
science, falsely so called, and the truth as it is in Jesus ; a contest 
which has been continually renewed from that day to this, with 
each new phase of a godless and faithless rationalism. How sug- 
gestive and instructive was the encounter ! On the one side we 
see a quiet and unpretending, but fearless and trusting spirit, too 
confident of its strength to lose its calm heroism, and too conscious 
of its weakness to forget its lowly humility, with no parade of 
learning and no display of power ; on the other side, a proud, 
sneering, and conceited spirit inflated with a confidence in its own 
powers, and despising the presumptuous babbler who had never 
traversed the shades of the Academy or learned the language of 
the Porch. Yet when eighteen hundred years have passed, the 
subtleties and logomachies of the Epicurean and the Stoic are 
forgotten, whilst the loftiest minds and the purest hearts of the 
race are bending with admiring reverence over the pages of this 
babbler of the Areopagus. The philosophies of Zeno and Epicu- 
rus, Plato and Aristotle, have been thrown aside as antiquated 
and obsolete, whilst the Christianity of Paul, to the last letter of 
its teaching is, this day, sustaining the faith and brightening the 
hope of millions. 

It becomes therefore a matter of instructive interest to examine 
what were the doctrines deemed essential to be maintained by 
Paul in this encounter. Occupying a position of such extreme 
delicacy and danger, he would peril neither his cause nor his 
person by the gratuitous assertion of doubtful or irrelevant propo- 
sitions. Before an audience of Athenians and philosophers, whom 
his whole discourse shows he was anxious to conciliate and 
convert, he would adduce nothing but the most essential and fun- 
damental truths pertaining to Christianity, truths so vital as to 
require him to stake his cause on their successful defence. What 
then are these doctrines ? He was speaking to a nation of poly- 
theists, a people w T ho had tenanted every rock and river, every 
mountain and plain with their innumerable deities, and who, in 
the thronging multitudes of their gods and demigods, demons and 
heroes, had lost sight of the one great unseen, unchangeable, but 
to them, unknown Jehovah. Hence with an elegance of exor- 
dium, whose tact, beauty and courtesy, are almost unequalled in 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



413 



the history of ancient eloquence, he assails the fundamental posi- 
tion of polytheism, and asserts the existence, the attributes, the 
sovereignty and the claims of the one, great God. 

But he was also addressing a people who regarded themselves 
as amox&oves, sprung from the sacred soil of Attica, undeiived and 
independent of all other families of mankind. But in direct con- 
tradiction to a theory suggested by their pride, and cherished by 
their philosophy, Pauls deems it essential to Christianity to assert 
that the unity of the divine involved the unity of the human, 
that the oneness of the source from which the race of man came 
forth, found its proper counterpart in the oneness of that race it- 
self, and that the ethnological distribution of that race was not a 
matter of random chance, but of specific divine appointment and 
direction. " God that made the world and all things therein hath 
made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face 
of the earth ; and hath determined the times before appointed 
and the bounds of their habitation." Acts xvii. 26. Here then 
in the very first encounter of Christianity with human philoso- 
phy, its great expounder asserts as essential doctrines in its teach- 
ings, that all men have been derived from a single source, having 
a unity of blood-relationship, which implies a unity of origin ; and 
that the geographical distribution of the various nations or fami- 
lies of men, and the epochs of their history, are not matters of 
chance, or undirected general law, but of specific divine appoint- 
ment. 

The mere fact that a man of such consummate tact and cour- 
tesy as Paul, deemed it necessary to assert the unity of the human 
race among a people who held its diversity by claiming for them- 
selves a separate origin on the soil, is a proof that he regarded it 
as essential to Christianity. The studied adaptation of his dis- 
course to Athenian customs and forms of thought proves, that if 
this doctrine so offensive o the pride of that jealous and scornful 
people, could have been suppressed or explained away, it would 
have been done, that no unnecessary obstacle might be thrown in 
their way to the reception of Christianity. But side by side with 
the unity of the divine nature does he place the unity of the 
human race as a truth correlative, supplementary, and equally 
essential to the Christian system. 

The reason of this juxtaposition' and of the stress laid on this 
doctrine, is involved in the subsequent parts of his discourse. He 
there glances at the dealings of God with the human race in the 



414 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION". 



past, present and future, showing in those dealings the unity of 
a mighty purpose that binds all the race in one common destiny 
to its one common God, the twofold aspects of which destiny in 
their terrible contrasts of weal and of woe, shall be unfolded in the 
dread scenes of a common resurrection and a common judgment. 
But his epistles explain more fully the earnestness and prominence 
bestowed on this doctrine. The theory of sin and redemption 
which Paul believed to underlie the entire system of Christianity, 
reposes in its last analysis on the unity of the human race. 

This is distinctly and emphatically asserted in the fifth chapter 
of Romans, where the parallel is run at length between the fall of 
the race in Adam and its redemption in Christ. "By one man 
sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed 
upon all men." " As by one man's disobedience many were made 
sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made right- 
eous." Rom. v. 12, 19. " For as in Adam all die, even so in 
Christ shall all be made alive." "The first man Adam was 
made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." 
"The first man is of the earth, earthy, the second man is the 
Lord from heaven." 1 Cor. xv. 22, 45, 47. As Adam is the 
natural head of all that sin, and all that die, so Christ is the spir- 
itual head of all that are saved from the guilt of that sin, and the 
sting of that death. The universal headship of the one finds its 
proper and only counterpart in the universal headship of the other. 
The salvation in Christ runs parallel with the depravity that is 
traced to Adam, and if we cut off any portion of the human race 
from its connection with Adam, we thereby cut it off from its con- 
nection with Christ, and all the hopes that are garnered up in his 
atoning work. If we close to any nation on earth the pathway 
that leads to Eden, all stained though it be with blood, and all 
blistered though it be with tears, we by that act close to them 
the more precious pathway that leads to Calvary, and deny them 
the boon of those gushing streams that come forth from the cross 
to wash away the dark and sorrowful traces of sin that lie all 
along the highway of human history. This question, therefore, 
is not one of mere idle speculation, but one whose relations are 
entwined with all that is most precious and vital to Christianity. 

The effort to evade the force of these considerations by affirm- 
ing that the Bible speaks only of the historic races, is one that 
demands little attention, until it is shown that the non-historic 
races neither sin, nor die, nor have any capacity of sharing salva- 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION". 



415 



tion in Christ. If depravity and death are the pecu.iar heritage 
of the superior races, and a title to heaven a thing dependent on 
the hue of the cuticle and the texture of the hair, then we may 
assert the original diversity of the race, without impeaching the 
Bible. But if in Adam all sin and die who do sin and die, and in 
Christ all are made alive who are made alive, then this evasion 
of the manifest teachings of the Bible is to stultify Moses and to 
falsify Paul. That Moses must have known of the existence of 
the colored races, is evident from the pictures on the tombs in 
Egypt, dating back, it is alleged, beyond his period, and distinctly 
portraying these races as we find them now. Yet he tells us that 
Adam was the first man created ; that Eve was the mother of all 
living : that the Ethiopic and Egyptian races were descended from 
Noah through Cush and Mizraim ; and that the divided nations 
of the earth are the sons of Adam. And that the physical char- 
acteristics of the Cushite or Ethiopian were what they are now, 
is proven by the aphorism alluding to his skin. The same doc- 
trine is endorsed by our Lord when he enforces monogamy by the 
original unity of the race in Adam and Eve, and when to fulfil 
the prophecies concerning Ethiopia, the distant nations, and the 
isles of the sea, he commanded his disciples to go forth into all the 
world, and preach the gospel to every creature. And we cannot 
think it wholly devoid of significance that the man who was 
chosen to aid our Lord in bearing his cross to the bloody hill was 
Simon of Cyrene, an African ; and that one of the earliest con- 
verts to Christianity was an eunuch of the court of Candace, 
queen of Ethiopia. 

Hence the right of these non-historic races to the salvation of 
Christ has been clearly recognized by Christ and his apostles, and 
this recognition brings after it the implication that they are de- 
scended from Adam, by the express teaching of Paul. We chal- 
lenge the right to offer the salvation that is in Christ to any crea- 
ture not descended from Adam, any more than to brutes on the 
one hand and devils on the other. It is restricted by Paul to the 
sons of Adam, so that whoever proves himself a son of Adam, 
thereby proves his right to this salvation ; and vice versa, whoever 
proves by the fact that he is saved, that he has a right to this 
salvation, thereby proves his descent from Adam. The doctrine, 
therefore, of the unity of the human race is one that is essential 
to Christianity as Paul aught ii and hence vital to the divine 
origin of the Bible. 



416 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION". 



But we are told by some who call themselves ethnologists, that 
science has exploded this dogma, and shown that this descent of 
all men from Adam is impossible, and hence that we must aban- 
don this ground, if not abandon Christianity itself. Now if it be 
true that the unity of the race is demonstrated to be an impossi- 
bility, we must acknowledge ourselves to be in a perplexity at 
least, if not an inextricable difficulty. But the wonder arises how 
this infant science, which has scarcely left its leading strings should 
be able so soon to pronounce with such dogmatic certainty on the 
possibilities and impossibilities of five or six thousand years ago. 
The very word impossibility is falling out of the vocabulary of 
science, since the alleged impossibilities of one year are becoming 
the tritest actualities of the next. When, therefore, we find this 
beardless science, in any of its advocates, pronouncing so dog- 
matically on this high and solemn question, we are ready to infer 
that it has not only the bold confidence of youth, but also some 
of its rash presumption. This inference is strengthened by the 
fact that so many of the first scholars of the world, who have 
been studying these topics for years, have been unable to perceive 
this impossibility, and continue to maintain this exploded doctrine. 
Were the question to be decided by the authority of great names, 
we would be perfectly contented to place the tw r o classes in juxta- 
position, and allow the decision to fall where the lustre of scien- 
tific fame is brightest and broadest. But as this could decide 
nothing absolutely, we are willing to come to closer quarters, and 
grapple with the ethnological objection directly, and we meet the 
averment that the specific and original unity of the human race 
is impossible with a flat and emphatic denial. 

We wish our position here to be distinctly understood. We 
believe that the question of the exact origin of the different varie- 
ties of the human race is one of history rather than of physical 
science. Hence the real and decisive points on which it rests are 
first: Has the Bible definitely pronounced on this subject? and, 
secondly, Is the Bible inspired of God. and therefore a reliable his- 
tory of facts ? Both these points w T e believe to have been clearly 
proved, and hence the whole weight of the Christian evidences 
must be set aside before the unity of the race can be demonstrated 
to be untrue. It is however alleged as an objection to these evi- 
dences that science has shown this unity to be impossible. All 
therefore that we are bound by the law^s of disputation to do, is to 
make out a simple case of possibility, and the whole w T eight of the 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



417 



Bible as a positive testimony on the point remains unimpaired. 
We are not bound to show how the varieties of the race have 
actually arisen, or what are the causes now or formerly at work 
to generate them ; for this is the proper province of science, and 
not of theology. If however we should be able to show by admit- 
ted facts and principles of science that it is not only possible but 
probable that the varieties of the race have had a common origin, 
in a single pair, we pass beyond the absolute necessities of our 
position of defence, and construct an independent argument in 
favor of the scriptural record, the value of which will be in precise 
proportion to the strength of the probability we may be able to 
establish. With this explanation of the exact position we occupy, 
we are willing to meet the ethnological objection on its own chosen 
ground, as a matter of simple science. 

As man possesses a physical constitution precisely analogous to 
that of the lower animals, it is perfectly fair for us to argue from the 
laws and capabilities of the one. to the laws and capabilities of the 
other. If then we shall find on examining the lower tribes that they 
have a tendency to assume the same diversities of appearance that 
we see in the different families of man, in cases where they are 
known to have had the same original parentage ; if we find a test of 
common origin always co-existing with these diversities also exist- 
ing in the different varieties of men ; if we find constant and vari- 
able causes producing the changes in the lower tribes of the same 
origin, which we see in the races of men, we will of course not be 
at liberty to infer that as to the one, which we know would be un- 
true as to the other. We propose then to show by an induction of 
particulars, from the most recent and authentic sources, that there 
is nothing in the diversities of physical feature appearing among 
men, which the law of variation, as it is found to exist in other de- 
partments of animal life, as well as in the natural history of man, 
does not permit to consist with origin from a single and common 
source ; and hence nothing in these diversities which renders it 
impossible for all the families of man to have descended from a 
single original pair, according to the teachings of the Bible. 

When we take up this question as one of Natural History, it 
amounts simply to this: Are the diversities appearing among men, 
as to their physical or intellectual peculiarities such as to prove 
that they are different species, having different origins, or only 
such as to prove that they are different varieties of the same spe- 
cies, having the same origin ? 

27 



418 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



The word species is often loosely used to mean any class of 
individuals possessing characteristics in common. In zoology, 
however, it has a fixed and definite sense. This sense is not an 
arbitrary invention in the nomenclature of science, but a perma- 
nent fact ordained in the very constitution of organic life. A 
species is simply a tribe of living things descended originally from 
the same common parentage. The fact that puts them in the 
same species, is, descent from the same original stock. Now, as 
this fact cannot always be ascertained historically, Nature (by 
which term in this discourse we always mean the God of Nature) 
has left a mark by which this can always be ascertained. This 
mark is the power of permanent reproduction. Like always pro- 
duces like, and not unlike. That, therefore, which proves the 
descent of the offspring from the parentage, is the power of pro- 
ducing and perpetuating an offspring in all essential respects simi- 
lar to that parentage. 

That this is not a position assumed for the sake of maintaining 
our argument might be shown at any length by reference to ac- 
knowledged authorities in science. Two of the latest and highest 
in the departments bearing on this question will suffice. Dr. La- 
tham, President of the Ethnological Society of London, and con- 
fessedly one of the first Ethnologists of the age, in his book on the 
Natural History of the Varieties of Man, just issued, sums up the 
principles and facts of this science in a series of aphorisms^ three 
of which we will quote. " XXII. A protoplast is an organized 
individual capable (either singly or as one of a pair) of propagat- 
ing individuals, itself having been propagated by no such individ- 
ual or pair." XXVI. " A species is a class of individuals, each 
of which is hypotheticaliy considered to be the descendant of the 
same protoplast, or of the same pair of protoplasts." XXVII. " A 
multiplicity of protoplasts for a single species is a contradiction in 
terms. If two or more such individuals (or pairs), as like as the 
two Dromios, were the several protoplasts to several classes of 
organized beings (the present members being as like each other 
as their ancestors were) the phenomenon would be, the existence 
in Nature of more than one undistinguishable species, not the ex- 
istence of more than one protoplast to a single species." Pp. 563-4 
London, 1851. 

Sir C. Lyeil in his Elements of Geology has presented the 
same views drawn from his department of science. In the thirty- 
seventh chapter of this work he sums up the conclusions which 



the ethnologica: objection. 



419 



he regards as established by geology on this question, the sixth 
of which is as follows : " From these considerations it appears 
that species have a real existence in nature, and that each 
was endowed, at the time of its creation, with the attributes 
and organization by which it is now distinguished." Seventh 
Edition, p. 585. His other conclusions are in precise accordance 
with those which we shall now present in regard to species and 
varieties. 

There are two great facts that characterize the actions of 
nature in regard to the different families of living things : the 
one is the great flexibility and adaptability of the law of resem- 
blance within certain limits ; the other is, the rigid, inflexible per- 
manence of that law beyond these limits. The final causes of 
these facts or laws will be obvious on a moment's reflection. 

The first law is essential to the very existence and advance- 
ment of human society. The earth contains many varieties of 
climate, soil, and surface, and the precise physical constitution 
adapted to one place would be very unsuitable to another. Hence, 
either the more useful races of animals and plants must be con- 
fined to their original locality ; or a new creation must take place 
whenever a new country is to be settled ; or there must be in 
organic life a power of adaptation by which it shall conform to 
the new circumstances in which the possessors of it may be 
placed. The necessities of man, however, demand that certain 
animals and plants should be domesticated, and trained to the 
various uses for which they may be needed, and that they be 
capable of transportation with him in his various migrations. 
Now, if the peculiarities of each species were unchangeable, 
domesticity and migration would be impossible. The dog, the 
horse, the sheep, and the hog, must icmain in their original wiid- 
ness, and the many useful varieties of these important races be 
unknown. The plants, fruits, and grains, must be confined to 
the countries to which they were indigenous, and be incapable 
of improvement by cultivation. The incentives and rewards of 
human industry and skill, arising from the wonderful improve- 
ments that may be made by cultivation, and acting so powerfully 
upon the civilization and advancement of the world, would be 
wholly wanting. Therefore, to accomplish the obvious purposes 
of God in peopling the earth, there must be this nisus formativus 
in organic life, by which the various tribes of living things may 
be adapted to the circumstances of their position and the wants 



420 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



of man, and by which a stimulus may be given to the active and 
inventive faculties of social and civilized life. It is this fact, or 
tendency in organic life, which gives rise to those endless varieties 
of different species which we find everywhere existing, especially 
in the more settled and advanced states of society. 

But the second law is equally important. If this capability of 
variation were unlimited, the peculiarities of each species must at 
last be w 7 holly obliterated. If the different species could amalga- 
mate without limit, and produce new species partaking of the 
characteristics of both races thus commingled, in process of time 
the existing species must become hopelessly confounded, the 
peculiarities that fit them for their various positions in the scale 
of living things be lost, and the earth become a scene of organic 
confusion. Indeed, had this law not been always in existence, 
the various species of domestic animals, at least, would long since 
have disappeared and become completely blended into some 
strange and nondescript monstrosity, as w T ild as a sick man's 
dream. To prevent such a calamity nature has set up an im- 
passable barrier between the different species, so as to prevent 
their permanent intermixture. It is this fact that establishes the 
conditions of hybridity. A hybrid individual may be produced 
between two different species but never a hybrid species, for 
the hybrid is barren, and cannot perpetuate its kind. And 
although, in two or perhaps three cases (those of the buffalo and 
cow, the China and common goose, and some species of ducks), 
where the species are nearly related, the power of reproduction 
exists in the hybrid, it is so feeble as not to extend beyond the 
second or third generation. The race becomes extinct, and hence 
the hybrid is incapable of establishing a new species. Recent 
anatomical investigations show that an actual barrier is produced 
in the hybrid making the power of propagation impossible. And 
universal observation shows that there is between different species 
an invincible repugnance to union, so that death is often the 
result of attempts to bring them together. No new species then 
can be produced by art or accident, for the attempt to produce it 
will always end in barrenness. The law of organic life is, that 
each creature shall propagate its own kind and not any other. 
It is also a significant indication of the strength of this law, that 
mules, or hybrid plants and animals, very rarely occur in a wild 
state. They are usually the result of domesticity or specific cul- 
ture, in which the action of nature is forced by man, and in such 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



421 



cases her displeasure is evinced by the sterility of the unnatural 
product. Were it necessary, we could give a page of hybrids 
between different species, which, in spite of every effort to the 
contrary, have been found absolutely sterile. The fact, then, that 
hybrid individuals are barren, and hence, that hybrid species or 
races can never be formed, furnishes us with a clear and certain 
criterion- of species and varieties. If we find the power of per- 
manent reproduction existing between any two classes, we know 
that they are only varieties, and belong to the same species. If 
they belong to the same species we infer that they had the same 
origin, for we have seen that the production of a new species is 
impossible. 

The application of these views to the question before us is 
obvious. We know that the different races of men freely and 
permanently amalgamate. This phenomenon has frequently 
been seen, and new races possessing the power of permanent 
reproduction have frequently been formed, and are now in actual 
process of formation. The fertility of the mixed races of men, 
therefore, proves them to belong to the same species ; and, unless 
man be an exception to all other races of living things, or unless 
there is specific historical testimony to establish the contrary, 
proves that these races have had a common and a single origin. 

The most strenuous attack that has ever been made on this long- 
established doctrine of natural history, has been by Dr. Morton of 
Philadelphia. In an essay on the hybrid ity of animals in its rela- 
tion to the unity of the human, races, he affirms that hybrid races, 
with the power of permanent reproduction, are capable of being 
formed ; and hence that this is not the criterion to determine 
separate species. He brings together an imposing array of 
alleged facts to sustain this position. But this array has not im- 
posed on Dr. Bachman, however it may have on Dr. Morton. 
With a far wider knowledge of both the science and the literature 
of the subject than even his learned and we may now add, his 
lamented opponent, Dr. Bachman has taken up these facts 
seriatim^ and shown with the clearness of demonstration, that 
some, of his statements are not authentic; that others are dis- 
proved by positive countervailing testimony ; that others are so 
vague and indefinite as to establish nothing with certainty ; that 
others prove the very position which he attacks ; and that in no 
case has it been proven that a hybrid race or species has been 
produced or perpetuated. This is done with a searching thorough- 



422 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



ness and minuteness of refutation that leaves literally no ground 
for the theory to rest upon, and establishes the sterility of hybrids 
and the impossibility of hybrid races beyond all successful con- 
tradiction. 

The views that Professor Agassiz has recently thrown out, are 
only in partial conflict with this general doctrine, and hence need 
not be examined in this immediate connection. 

Here then we might rest the argument for the unity of the races, 
as an established point of natural history, and demand proof that 
man was an exception to the rest of the animated creation. But 
we are willing to waive this advantage, and investigate those diffi- 
culties that lie in our path, which however do not press peculiarly 
on our position. 

The great difficulty in the way of admitting the unity of the 
human race, is the number and marked character of the existing 
varieties. It is alleged that these varieties are so broad, so per- 
manent, and so ancient, that we are forced to the conclusion that 
the different families had different origins. Let us then examine 
the law of varieties as it exists in the other forms of organic life, 
and ascertain whether it leads us to this conclusion. If we find 
that no such widely-marked and permanent varieties appear in 
them, this difficulty will be formidable to the theory of unity. But 
if we find in tribes that are known to belong to the same species 
and to have had the same origin, varieties appearing as broadly 
marked, and as indelible as those of the human race — varieties 
which when once produced put on the permanence of species in 
their characteristics, — then it will follow that the existence of sim- 
ilar varieties, similarly marked, in the human race, can be no valid 
proof of either diversity of species or diversity of origin. 

We have already remarked that it is a law of Nature that varie- 
ties be produced within the same species, and that to this benefi- 
cent law we owe much of the comfort and improvement of our 
race. These varieties are sometimes accidental, originating with- 
out any known cause. A striking instance of this law of acci- 
dental origin is found in the otter breed of sheep. In 1791 one 
ewe, on the farm of Seth Wright, in Massachusetts, gave birth to 
a male lamb, which, without any known cause, had a longer 
body and shorter legs than the rest of the breed, with the fore- 
legs crooked. This peculiar form rendering it unable to leap 
fences, it was resolved if possible to propagate this accidental vari- 
ety. This was accordingly done, and the breed received its name 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



42g 



from the resemblance of its bodily form to that : r the otter. A 
race of swine with solid hoofs arose in Hungary, in the same way, 
and recently the same singular variety has made its appearance 
along the banks of the Red river in our own country, without any 
assignable cause. 

But varieties are more frequently formed from causes acting uni- 
formly and regularly, such as climate, food, habit of life, etc., in 
the states of wildness and domesticity. Whilst we are unable to 
say what the precise mode of action is, the general fact is clear, 
that where animals are subjected to any new circumstances such 
as these, there is an instant effort in Nature to accommodate her- 
self to these circumstances, and if there is sufficient constitutional 
energy to endure this struggle, the result is a change in the phys- 
ical peculiarities which are adapted to the change in the outward 
circumstances. This is the great law of compensation that runs 
through all organic life, and is one of the most mysterious and 
beautiful in the economy of Nature. It is the great analogue to 
the adaptive susceptibilities of the social world, which illustrates 
the wonderful correspondences that we find running through all 
the manifestations of that dread and glorious mystery — Life. 

It is difficult to trace our domestic animals to their original 
stocks, owing to the remoteness of the period of their subjugation 
by man. The original types, in many cases, seem to have dis- 
appeared, the necessity for their continued existence no longer re- 
maining. The oxen, horses, goats, etc. which we now find wild, 
are more frequently derivations from the domesticated varieties, 
than types from which those varieties were originally derived. 
But the transition from domesticity to wildness furnishes us with 
a standard by which to judge of the changes effected in the con- 
trary transition ; and although it is doubtful whether the original 
type is ever entirely restored in such cases, yet we have, at least, 
an illustration of the law of variations, and the tendency in or- 
ganic life to put on new characteristics when subjected to ne\v 
influences. 

Happily for our purpose *ve have a series c£ authentic experi- 
ments, made on a scale sufficiently extended to afford us the finest 
possible illustration of this great law. The Spaniards, when they 
discovered this country, found none of the domestic animals exist- 
ing here which were used in Europe. They were accordingly in- 
troduced, and escaping and straying from their owners, they have 
run wild in cur vast forests for several centuries. The result has 



424 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



been the obliteration of the characteristics of the domesticated 
animals, and a reappearance of some of the typal marks of the wild 
state; and a generation of new and striking characteristics in ac- 
commodation to these new circumstances. 

The wild hog of our forests bears a striking likeness to the wild 
boar of the old world. The hog of the high mountains of Paramos 
resembles the wild boar of France. Instead of being covered with 
bristles, however, as the domestic breed from which they sprang, 
they have a thick fur, often crisp, and sometimes an under-coat of 
wool. Instead of being generally white or spotted, they are uni- 
formly black, except in some warmer regions, where they are red, 
like the young pecari. The anatomical structure has changed, 
adapting itself to the new habits of the animal, in an elongation 
of the snout, a vaulting of the forehead, a lengthening of the hind 
legs, and in the case of those left on the island of Cubagua, a 
monstrous elongation of the toes to half a span. 

The ox has undergone the same changes. In some of the prov- 
inces of South America a variety has been produced called "pel- 
ones,"' having a very rare and fine fur. In other provinces a 
variety is produced with an entirely naked skin, like the dog of 
Mexico or of Guinea. In Colombia, owing to the immense size of 
farms and other causes, the practice of milking was laid aside, and 
the result has been that the secretion of milk in the cows is, like 
the same function in other animals of this class, only an occa- 
sional phenomenon, and confined strictly to the period of suck- 
ling the calf. As soon as the calf is removed, the milk ceases to 
How, as in the case of other mammals. 

The same changes have taken place in other animals. The 
wild dog of the Pampas never barks as the domestic animal does, 
but howls like the wolf ; whilst the wild-cat has in like manner los? 
the habit of caterwauling. The wild horse of the higher plains ol 
South America becomes covered with a long, shaggy fur, and . 
of an uniform chestnut-color. The sheep of the Central Cordil 
leras, if not shorn, produces a thick, matted, woolly fleece, which 
gradually breaks off in shaggy tufts, and leaves underneath a 
short, fine hair, shining and smooth, like that of the goat, and the 
wool never reappears. The goat has lost her large teats, and pro- 
duces two or three kids annually. The same changes have been 
produced in geese and gallinaceous fowls. A variety has sprung 
up, called rumpless fowls, which want from one to six of the cau- 
dal vertebrae. 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



425 



The same varieties have sprung up iu other parts of the world. 
The fat-tailed sheep of Tartary loses its posterior mass of fat, when 
removed to the Steppes of Siberia, whose scant and bitter herbage 
is less favorable to the secretion of adipose matter. The African 
sheep has become large like a goat, and exchanged its wool for 
hair. The Wallachian sheep has put on large, perpendicular, 
spiral horns, and in like manner become clothed with hair. Some 
also have four, and even six horns. The wild horses of eastern 
Siberia have the same anatomical differences from the tame ones 
that we noticed in the case of the swine; and culture, climate> and 
other causes, have produced the widest varieties — from the little, 
shaggy pony of the Shetlands, that scrambles up the Highland 
crags like a goat, to the gigantic steed of Flanders, or the Cones- 
toga of Pennsylvania, which will sometimes drag a load of four 
tons on the level ground. Whether the dog and the wolf are of 
the same species, is a question about which there is some differ- 
ence of opinion among naturalists; but there is a very general 
agreement that all varieties of the dog must be referred to one 
species. Between these there is the widest difference — from the 
gigantic St. Bernard that will carry a frozen traveller to the con- 
vent, the shaggy Newfoundland with his webbed feet and his 
aquatic habits, and the scentless and almost tongueless grey- 
hound ; to the little lap-dog that nestles in a lady's arms, the 
nosing foxhound whose scent is almost a miracle, the ratting ter- 
rier, and the naked Mexican dog that has an additional toe. 
The cow presents the most diverse varieties — from the little 
Surat ox, not larger than a dog, to the humped and long-eared 
Brahmin cow, and the gigantic prize ox that will weigh two tons. 
The domesticated fowls and pigeons have assumed varieties 
enough to fill a page, some of them of the most diverse character, 
varying from the largest size to the most dwarfish, and possessing 
every peculiarity compatible with the preservation of the species, 
in the feathers, the form, 'he wattles, and the psychological traits 
and habits. 

From this brief summary of facts, which might be indefinitely 
extended, we may infer the law of variation in animal life, as to its 
extent. Within the limits of the preservation of the type of the 
spscies, the widest variations may occur in anatomical structure; 
in 3xternal properties, in the color of the skin, in the color and 
texture of the hair, in the features, and in the psychological hab- 
its ; and these peculiarities once produced may pass into permanent 



426 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



varieties, whk*: shall assume all the indelibility of species. And 
this remarkable fact may be observed, that the nearer the animal 
approaches to man in its associations and habits, the wider the 
range of variation. The dog, who is man's companion and imitator, 
more nearly than any other animal, — who hunts with him in the 
forest, watches with him over the flock, lies down by his fireside, 
and shares his food, — has, perhaps the widest range of variety. So 
the roots and grains that are most used by man have the most va- 
rieties. The potato has more than one hundred varieties ; and Dr. 
Bachman relates that he saw at one warehouse, more than one hun- 
dred kinds of wheat. The fact then stands broadly out, that the 
widest varieties may occur among animals that are known to be- 
long to the same species. Hence, when we come to man himself, 
and find varieties existing that are widely different from each other, 
we see in the range and extent of these varieties nothing which 
this law of variation in the lower tribes declares to be at variance 
with the position that these races all belong to the same species 
and possess the same origin. 

But the law of variation we find as clearly marked in its perma- 
nence, as we have found it in its extent. The general fact is, that 
varieties, when once formed, never return to their original type, if 
left to themselves. They may be changed into new varieties, by 
being subjected to new circumstances ; but if left alone, they will 
perpetuate their own characteristics, and not those from w T hich they 
have departed. The motto of nature is nulla vestigia retrorsirm. 
The stream never flows backward to the fountain. The variety 
may have been produced by accident ; but once produced, it puts 
on the unyielding tenacity of a species. It may pass into a new 
variety, but this will rarely if ever be the exact type of the original 
species. Some varieties of the dog have been in existence for 
centuries, and their precise origin is lost in the past. These va- 
rieties have necessarily assumed all the tenacious permanence of 
species, to have maintained for so many years a distinct existence. 
The final cause of the permanence of varieties is identical with 
that of the permanence of species. The same beneficent reasons 
which demand that the valuable properties of a species should 
not be lost by the extinction or amalgamation of that species, also 
require that, when a variety has been called forth by peculiar cir- 
cumstances, that variety should be permanent. 

If, therefore, we find that the varieties of the human race remain 
permanent, although the climatic or other influences under which 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



427 



we find them may be changed; if we find that the black, red, and 
white races continue to propagate their peculiarities, although their 
original geographical positions should be exchanged, we find in 
this fact nothing which is at variance with the law of varieties, as 
we have just found it to exist in the lower tribes. 

Having thus learned the law of variation, within the limit of 
species, as to the lower families of animated nature, we turn to 
the varieties of the human race, and inquire whether there is any- 
thing in them, as to their extent or permanence, inconsistent with 
unity of origin and unity of species. 

When we come to examine these varieties in detail, we find 
them to be neither so many, nor so great, as w T e find them in o*her 
animals confessedly of the same species, and of the same parent- 
age. The difference between the fairest Caucasian and the sootiest 
African, is not nearly so great as that between the little, shaggy, 
Shetland pony, and the gigantic dray-horse of London ; or between 
the soft and silky lap-dog, and the majestic St. Bernard. The 
differences we have already noted between the oxen, hogs, horses 
and goats that run wild in our forests, and the breeds from which 
they are known to have sprung, are far greater than we find be- 
tween any two races of men on earth. 

It is by means of the number, importance, and permanence of 
the resemblance between individuals ; and, also, by the fact of their 
capability to unite and produce fertile progeny, that we are enabled 
to class them in the same species. This is the rule adopted as to 
all other departments of natural history, and hence the rule that 
should govern us here. Now, when we examine the various races 
of men, we find that they agree among themselves and differ from 
all other animals in many marked characteristics. They resemble 
each other in the number, the length, the position, the growth, and 
the shedding of the teeth ; in the shortness of the lower jaw, and 
the obliteration, at a very early period of embryonic existence, of 
all trace of the original separation between the maxillary and in- 
termaxillary bones ; in the number of bones in the skeleton ; in an 
erect stature ; in the articulation of the head with the spinal 
column by the middle of its basis; in the possession of two hands, 
and they of the most exquisite mechanism ; in a smooth skin, 
and the head covered with hair ; in the number and arrangement 
of the muscles, the digestive and other organs ; in the great de- 
velopment of the cerebral hemispheres, and the size of the brain 
compared with the nerves connected with it ; in the organs of 



42S 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



speech, and the power of singing and laughing ; in being omniv- 
orous and using cooked food, and therefore fire ; in the capability 
of inhabiting all climates ; in a long infancy, slow growth, and 
late puberty : in a peculiar structure of the physical constitution of 
the female, in the incurvation of the sacrum and os coccygis, and 
consequent forward direction of the organs connected with them ; 
in the period of gestation ; in the number of young at a birth ; 
in the times and seasons of procreation ; in liability to the same 
diseases, the same parasitical insects and worms ; and above all 
in the possession of mental, moral and religious faculties, which 
make them subjects of the government of God, and responsible tv 
his law, as well as capable of organized society, and the various 
phenomena of civilization. Now if these momentous resemblan- 
ces and peculiarities do not classify the human races into one 
species, how can a case of species ever be made out? If all these 
essential resemblances, together with the capability of blending 
the different races and producing fertile varieties, do not prove unity 
of species, and, therefore, by the admitted rules of natural history, 
unity of origin, what conceivable facts could establish it? 

But if the varieties of the human race were much more widely 
marked than we see them, there would be in this no insuperable 
objection to their original and specific unity. The same general 
reasons that require varieties to exist in organic life at all, demand 
a wider margin for them in man than in any other animal. His 
range of being is wider ; his circumstances and necessities more 
varied and numerous ; his destinies higher in the event of obedience, 
and lower in the event of disobedience, to the laws under which he 
is placed ; his capabilities of self-culture are more expansive, that a 
stronger stimulus might be applied to his active powers, and hence, 
as a correlative fact, his liability to degeneracy, if that culture b3 
neglected, is proportionally wide in its range ; and his entire posi- 
tion as the responsible head of the creation demands a broader 
scope for change to the better, and hence by possibility to the worse, 
than any other animal on earth. We would therefore naturally 
expect a wider variation in all those characteristics that are affect- 
ed by the outward circumstances in which he is placed. He in- 
habits every climate — from the frozen snows of the Arctics, where 
the reindeer perishes with cold, to the burning sands of Sahara, 
and the steaming jungles of the Carnatic. He subsists on every 
species of food — from the dripping blubber and train-oil of the 
Esquimaux, to the cooling fruits and simple cereals of the naked 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION". 



429 



dweller in the tropics. He adopts every mode of life — from that 
of the lean and hungry hunter who scours the forest and plain for 
his daily food, or the wandering herdsman who tends his vast 
flocks by day and by night on the boundless Steppe and beneath 
the silent stars that looked down on the Chaldean shepherds, to the 
peaceful tiller of the soil, the moiling artisan of the shop, and the 
luxurious inmate of the princely mansion. He is subjected to the 
extremes of civilization and barbarism — influences the most potent, 
as facts before our eyes demonstrate, where a few families are left 
for a generation or two in ignorance, isolation and poverty ; and 
influences which cannot to any very great extent be brought to 
bear on the lower tribes. If then we should find the varieties of 
the human races broader and more indelible than those of other 
animals, we would find nothing, in this fact, which the causes just 
alluded to would not have led us to anticipate. That we do not 
find them much wider than they really are, is the result of that 
principle of resistance to external agencies with which, for obvious 
reasons, man as a cosmopolite has been endowed, a principle which 
whilst it resists the tendency to assume changes, gives a corre- 
sponding permanence to changes that are assumed, whatever be 
the cause of that assumption. 

But, great as these influences are, we are by no means certain 
that yet greater may not have existed in a former age of our 
world's history. That the climate of different portions of the earth's 
surface is not now what it once was, is rendered almost certain by 
some of the earth's geological records. And that some of these 
changes of climate have taken place since the creation of man, is 
also a fact of high probability. Whatever was the extent of the 
Noachic deluge, the physical conditions that affect the human 
race must have been seriously modified by it. The longevity of 
the antediluvians, and other facts testified both by Scripture and 
tradition, would seem to indicate that some change occurred either 
in the physical constitution of the race, or the outward conditions 
affecting it, at that time. And although we do not believe that 
the human race was created in a state of infantile imperfection in 
any respect, or that the pliancy of individual infancy can be pred- 
icated of the early stages of the human race, yet there may have 
been a quicker susceptibility in forming varieties, and a stronger 
tenacity in retaining them then, than we find in after periods of 
its history. When a colony of men are separated from a parent 
stock, and lay the foundations of a nation, there is a stronger 



430 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



tendency to assume distinctive features, growing out of their new 
circumstances than we find at a later period of their existence. 
National peculiarities, both physical and intellectual, may then be 
acquired in a few years which will continue for many generations. 
Hence, if in the early and forming stages of the human race, we 
should suppose a similar tendency to assume distinctive character- 
istics, stronger than we find at a later period, because the circum- 
stances were necessarily different, there is nothing in this which 
the soundest philosophy would contradict. 

But it by no means follows that no more potent agency was at 
work in these early ages of our history, than those which now 
exist in our nature, and are called out by the circumstances which 
demand their action. Assuming the agency of Divine Providence 
in the destinies of nations, the same reasons that required a dis- 
persion of men, and the confusion of their tongues at Babel, would 
also seem to require their separation by physical features as broad 
and indelible as the distinctions of language. If then there was 
even an extraordinary operation of divine agencies tending to 
produce diversity of physical features, as the Bible assures us there 
was to produce diversity of languages; if these original diversities 
were propagated and made permanent, by the isolation and restric- 
tive intermarriage of the respective families thus separated ; and if 
the general purposes of God, and destinies of the race, were to be ad- 
ranced by nations separated in their features as well as their lan- 
guage, there is nothing unscriptural or unreasonable in the hypo- 
thesis that thus some of these widest diversities may have origina- 
ted. Hence, if we should be unable to state historically the precise 
origin of all these varieties ; if there should be no known causes 
operating at present to produce new races, more than to produce 
new languages; if existing causes should be clearly ascertained to 
be insufficient to account for the appearance of the different races 
of men so early as we find them noticed in history — there would 
be nothing in this state of facts to shake the doctrine of the original 
unity of these races. If we must assert an interposition of divine 
power, as our opponents contend, the rules of hypothesis require 
us not to assume a higher cau> e or interposition if a lower is suffi- 
cient to explain the effect. Now, if instead of admitting, as they 
assert, a creative interposition of God, calling these varieties into 
existence from nonentity, we simply assert a directive interposition, 
causing different families already in existence to assume certain 
peculiarities which should be permanent, our hypothesis, presenting 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



431 



a lower, yet a sufficient cause, is obviously the more philosophical 
and reasonable. Hence, were it clearly proven (which it has not 
been), that existing causes, or natural causes once acting more 
powerfully than they do at present, could not explain these effects, 
then, on the supposition that our race is a fallen one, and that 
great problems of ontology are slowly evolving in its various fam- 
ilies ; and that, like the river that went out from Eden, this mighty 
stream of life, though originally one, has been separated into great 
heads, each of which has itself become a broad river, and gone 
forth to compass the earth — the position that this separation and 
division, like that of Babel, was caused by specific divine interpo- 
sitions no longer needed and no longer exerted, is, of the two 
demanded, the more reasonable, philosophical, and Scriptural. 

But whilst we believe this hypothesis to be a legitimate one in 
the discussion, should existing causes be demonstrated inadequate 
to account for the varieties, we need not take any special advan- 
tage of it. It has not been demonstrated that these causes are 
insufficient, but on the contrary many facts exist which tend to 
prove the opposite position. The law of variations, which we saw 
existing in the lower tribes, is found to exist in the human 
constitution, as clearly as in the other departments of animal life. 
Permanent causes are in constant operation, and accidental pecu- 
liarities arise, from both of which sources varieties appear whose 
characters are deep and permanent. 

It is impossible for us, in the present state of our physiological 
knowledge, to explain the precise mode in which changes are pro- 
duced in the physical constitution, by a change of geographical 
location. But the fact is, that there is in the constitution of man 
a tendency, such as we saw in that of the lower tribes, to put on 
certain changes of color, hair, form, etc., when removed from one 
climate and locality to another, or when subjected to any great 
change of social habits. Whether the external condition of these 
changes be the chemical solar rays ; the altitude or depression of 
the general level ; the difference of geological formations ; the vary- 
ing agencies of magnetism and electricity; atmospheric peculiari- 
ties ; miasmatic exhalations from vegetable or mineral matter ; 
difference of soils ; proximity to the ocean ; variety of food, habits 
of life and exposure — all of which perhaps at times come in play — 
or other causes yet more occult — there can be no question about 
the fact that such causes are at work. The general fact is, that 
when ,he other physical conditions are the same, tribes living 



432 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION". 



nearest the equator and level of the sea are marked with the dark- 
est skin, and the crispest hair. Thus, we make a gradual ascent 
from the jetty negro of the line to the olive-colored Arab, the brown 
Moor, the swarthy Italian, the dusky Spaniard, the dark-skinned 
Frenchman, the ruddy Englishman, and the pallid Scandinavian. 
When we reach the Arctic regions we find a dark tint reappear- 
ing, owing probably to the intensity of the summer's sun, the ex- 
posure of the natives, and the blackening effect of the winter's 
smoke in their dim and greasy burrows. When the w trite races 
are transferred to a tropical climate, there is a gradual darkening 
of the complexion and crisping of the hair. There is not so im- 
mediate and perceptible a change in the removal of the dark races 
to a cooler climate, because this deposition of a coloring pigment 
in the rete mucosum is a positive peculiarity; and ihe law of vari- 
eties, as we have ascertained it, is, that these peculiarities once 
produced become tenacious and permanent, even though the origi- 
nal condition of their production should be changed. The white 
races are more immediately affected because their color is a nega- 
tive peculiarity, and hence more readily affected by the action ot 
positive agencies. Dough may readily be changed into bread by 
subjecting it to heat, but bread cannot so readily be changed into 
dough by reversing the process — yet no man would from this fact 
affirm that a lump of dough and a loaf of bread may not have had 
the same origin. But even on these races a bleaching effect is 
6een after the lapse of a considerable time. The negroes of this 
country, where the race has been unmixed, are undoubtedly 
lighter in color than their kinsmen in Africa. And the Gipsies, 
in spite of their exposure and nomade habits, have gradually 
assumed a lighter tint in the cooler parts of Europe. So in the 
opposite direction Bishop Heber declares that three centuries of 
residence in India have made the Portuguese nearly as black as 
the Caffres. 

These agencies we find acting independently of any relations 
of race. Races that are known historically to have had the same 
origin, by exposure to these influences have assumed every shade 
of color, and the other peculiarities that are supposed to indicate 
a distinct origin in the different varieties. The children of Abra- 
ham are found of every hue, from the ruddy tints of the Polish 
and German, through the dusky hue of the Moorish and Syrian, 
to the jetty melanism of the black Jews of India. The American 
nations vary — from the fair tribes of the upper Orinoco, mentioned 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



433 



by Humboldt, to the chocolate-colored Charruas, and the black 
races of California, mentioned by "Dr. Morton. The great Arian 
race includes the AfTghan, Kurd, Armenian, and Indo-European 
of the fairest complexion, and the Hindoo, whose skin rivals in 
jettiness that of the negro. And the Hindoos themselves present 
every variety of complexion — from the fair-skinned Rajpoot, whose 
cheek is fanned by the cool breezes of the Himmalayas, to the 
swart coolies, and the coal-black fishermen, who swarm on the 
burning banks of the Hoogly. The Chinese Mongolians— corn- 
Dared among themselves, and also with the same race in adjacent 
countries — present the same results. The African races display 
the same varieties — from the red Fulahs and the yellow Bush- 
men, to the genuine negro of Guinea, and the broad-faced Hot- 
tentot of the southern plains. Many of the CafTres are stated by 
Professor Lichtenstein to be as light-colored as the Portuguese. 
The Gallas, a large and powerful race that inhabit northeastern 
Africa, and the Hauran people of Central Soudan, have physical 
features resembling those of the negroes, whilst their language 
and history indicate a Shemitish origin. A tribe also of the Ber- 
ber Tuaryk — that have long been isolated in the oasis Wadreag, 
an island of green, in the great African desert — have not only 
assumed the black hue which we find in many Arabs, but even 
the features and hair of the negro race. This has resulted, as 
the history of the tribe proves, not from any intermixture of races, 
— a result against which their haughty pride of blood were a suf- 
ficient guarantee, — but from the physical causes that glow and 
sweep over those oceans of burning sand. A similar fact is men- 
tioned by Mr. Buckingham in regard to an Arab family of the 
Hauran, all of whom, except the father, had negro features and 
hair, although it was matter of proof that no negro blcod had 
ever mingled with that of the family. Mr. B. referred it to that 
tropical sultriness that broods over the valley of the Jordan, giving 
the tribes of that region flatter features, darker skins, and coarser 
hair, than others of the same family. 

If we are asked what it is in the climate that produces these 
peculiarities, we cannot tell, any more than we can tell what it is 
in the climate of Africa that has made the hog black, stripped the 
sheep of its wool and clothed it with black hair, caused the hog 
and dog to lose their hair and have nothing but a black, oily skin, 
and made the feathers and bones of a variety of the gallinaceous 
fowl to become black, whilst its skin and wattles are purple. We 

28 



434 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBTECTIGN. 



know too little of the mysterious chemistry of the great laboratory 
of nature to say how these changes are wrought ; but the facts — 
that they are going on in the lower tribes before our eyes, and 
that they have occurred and are now occurring in tribes that are 
known to have had a foreign origin — prove that the existence of 
such diversities, where we are ignorant of their rise, cannot prove 
a diversity of origin in the races where they appear. 

But aside from these general causes, which act uniformly and 
universally, there are particular agencies at work, whose action 
produces varieties of the most permanent kind. Prichard suggests 
that the races of men as to their physical characteristics, fall into 
three general types, found respectively in the savage and hunting 
tribes, the nomadic and pastoral races, and the nations that are 
subjected to the influences of civilization. The first have a form 
of skull called prognathous, indicated by a forward prolongation 
of the jaws, and other features ; the second, a pyramidal form of 
skull with a broad face ; and the third, an oval or elliptical skull. 
When a race passes from the one mode of life to the other, there 
is a corresponding change in its physical features. Thus the 
Turks, since their encampment on the Bosphorus, have exchanged 
the Tartar peculiarities for those of the Europeans ; and the ne- 
groes, during their residence in this country, have undergone a 
decided change of skull and physical conformation. 

Other races are arising from intermixtures of existing ones. 
The Griquas in southern Africa have arisen from a union of the 
Dutch boors of the Cape with the aboriginal Hottentots, and are 
now a clearly-marked and permanent variety. The Cafusos in 
Brazil have sprung from a mixture of the native Indian race with 
the negroes. These varieties, though of such recent origin, have 
all the tenacity of other and older races. Even accidental features 
and malformations may be long transmitted in particular cases. 
A peculiar nose, mouth, or chin, will often pass through several 
generations of a family. A striking illustration of this is presented 
in the celebrated porcupine family of England, the members of 
which, for several generations, had their bodies covered with bony 
excrescences, like the quills of a porcupine, which were yearly 
shed, and yearly renewed. Although they intermarried with 
those who had no such peculiarity, yet so tenacious is nature of a 
property which has once appeared, that this singular kind of cuti- 
cle did not disappear for several generations. Mr. Poinsett also 
testifies to the existence of a spotted race of men in Mexico, a 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



435 



whole regiment of whom he saw, that is known to have arisen 
from a mixture of Spanish and Indian blood. 

Albinism is a further illustration of this law. It occurs in man, 
and the lower animals, without any known cause, and in the 
healthiest individuals. Its phenomena in the lower animals prove 
that it is not to be regarded as among the morbid manifestations 
of the physical system, but a mere accidental variety. An Albino 
rabbit, commonly called the English rabbit, has spread all over 
this country, without any variation or tendency to disease. White 
mice, rats, racoons, and ferrets, are also in existence. In the 
human races, negro as well as others, Albinoes appear who are 
prolific and healthy to an extent which proves, that if they were 
isolated and mated together, there would be an Albino race of 
men, as we have of rabbits and other animals. Had any of these 
accidental peculiarities been isolated, we would have had races of 
men differing from the rest more widely than any we now see^ 
which would yet not have warranted an inference that they had 
an independent creation. If then these greater differences would 
not have warranted the inference that the diverse races were of 
diverse origins, it is hard to see how smaller differences can de- 
mand a conclusion which would not have been warranted by the 
greater. 

But when we examine these diversities more closely, we find 
the argument drawn from them against the unity of the race to be 
hopelessly encumbered. If they prove anything in regard to the 
origin of the races, they prove too much, for they would prove fifty 
races as readily as five. There is no one feature that can be fixed 
upon as a test of species. Color, hair, form of skull, etc., all exist 
in their w 7 idest variety among those who are known to belong to 
the same race, and run into each other by shades so gradual that 
it is impossible to draw any clear line of demarcation. Hence 
scarcely any two great writers on this subject have been able to 
agree as to the number of races — some making but three ; some 
five ; whilst some make twelve or fifteen. No dividing line can 
be drawn. But if such a line could be drawn clearly, it would 
carry confusion, as to the doctrine of species, into every depart- 
ment of natural history. There are as wide and permanent va- 
rieties of cows, hogs, dogs, etc., known to have sprung from the same 
origin, as we find in the human races ; and if, for these reasons, 
we insist on different species of men, we must, also, on different 
species of these animals. This, however, would bring utter and 



436 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



hopeless confusion into every department of natural history, and 
disregard those clear and impassable marks, which nature has 
placed, to distinguish one species from another. As a question 
then of mere natural history, the unity of the human race is clearly 
the doctrine of science. Unity of species infers unity of origin, 
by consent of nearly all great naturalists. Unity of species is in- 
dicated by the power of mutual and permanent reproduction, and 
is perfectly consistent with wide and tenacious varieties. As there- 
fore the human races have this power of mutual and permanent 
reproduction, and as their varieties are neither as many nor as great 
as we find in the lower tribes of the same species, nor as we see 
accidentally appearing as sporadic cases in different races of men, 
we are at liberty to infer their original unity of species, and hence 
their original unity of origin. 

The only other objections presenting any difficulty are those 
drawn from the distribution of the races, and their isolation in 
countries and islands that are separated by wide and formidable 
barriers. Our limits will not allow us to go at length into this 
branch of the subject ; nor is it necessary, for, after all, it is only 
an argumentum ad ignorantiam. That we are unable to state 
with historical precision how America and the Polynesian Islands 
were peopled, is the natural result of the remoteness of the period 
when the migration occurred; and what is known cannot be set 
aside by unanswered queries about what is unknown. The ut- 
most that can be demanded of us is, to suggest a possible mode by 
which these migrations might have occurred ; and if there be any 
such possibility, the objection falls, for it assumes an impossibility 
as the only ground on which it can rest. 

Dr. Pickering affirms that it appears " on zoological grounds that 
the human family is foreign to the American Continent." How 
then they came here is not a question we are bound to answer 
more than those with whom we argue. 

That there may have been a connection by land across Bher- 
ing s Straits in former times, is a fact that the geological indica- 
tions of the region, and changes now going on, render, at least, 
not at all impossible. But even if this were not the case, the drift- 
ing of Japanese and Polynesian canoes, with their bewildered 
mariners, to lands many hundred miles — in one instance fifteen 
hundred from their starting-place, suggests the mode in which the 
Pacific islands, and then the American continent, may have been 
peopled. And when to this we add, that the traces of a higher 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



437 



civilization in ancient times, which are found in Central America, 
indicate the probability of superior skill and facilities in naviga 
lion among these early nations, the likelihood of such a migration, 
either by accident or design, becomes yet more probable. That 
there were nomade rovers of the sea — who passed from island to 
island, with their w T ives and domestic animals, just as the wan- 
dering races of the desert pass from oasis to oasis, and from 
pasturage to pasturage, on land — is a factbj no means improbable, 
And that some of these Bedouins of the ocean may have been 
driven to distant shores by the great westwardly currents of the 
Pacific, is a supposition which the facts already alluded to render 
highly probable. If it be said that all this is only an appeal tc 
our ignorance, we answer, that so is the objection to which we 
reply, and the one appeal is surely as fair as the other. The ob- 
jection demands an impossibility which these suppositions show 
does not exist in the case, and hence as an argument against our 
position it must fall. 

These conjectures are greatly strengthened by the fact, that all 
tradition and history point to Central Asia as the cradle of the 
human race. There we find what is confessedly the most perfect 
type of physical feature and development, whether we term it the 
Caucasian, the Circassian, or the Iranian race ; and as we trace 
the natural channels of population we find, except where civili- 
zation has interposed, a steady deterioration until we find the 
physiological extremes almost to coincide with the geographical, 
in the Negro of Africa, the Australian of Polynesia, and the Es- 
quimaux of America. Another fact that bears irresistibly in the 
same direction is, that this same spot is the native country of 
nearly all the animals, grains, vegetables, and fruits, that have ac- 
companied man in all his wanderings. It is the native country of 
rice, wheat, maize, the vine, and nearly all of the products of the 
earth that man has used for his food. There also we find in their 
wild state, the ass, goat, sheep, cow, horse, dog, hog, cat, camel, etc., 
the companions and servants of man the earth over. And as we 
trace these animals in their dispersions, we find them assuming 
the same variations of form and appearance that we find in the 
human races, nearly in exact proportion to the nearness of their 
association and companionship w T ith man. There are the same 
Asiatic pointings in the affinities and resemblances of language 
The science of comparative glottology is )^et in its infancy, bu* 
sufficient adva^e has been made to show the most remarkable 



438 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



relations ; and as the evidence is positive, it is reliable as far as 
it goes, to render it probable that all existing languages have had, 
to some extent, a common origin. Inasmuch, then, as the disper- 
sion of the families of the earth from a single spot, is neither im- 
possible nor improbable; as tradition points to a locality in Asia 
as that spot; as we find in that locality what seem to be the 
primitive types of man, and the animals and vegetables he has 
domesticated, — we submit that there is nothing in the present dis- 
tribution or isolation of the races, to set aside the evidence of nat- 
ural history already given, that these races belong to the same 
species and have had the same origin. 

But the most signal indication that could perhaps be given of 
the strength of the argument we have thus been developing, is, the 
recent position of Professor Agassiz, as detailed in two essays in 
the Christian Examiner. Perceiving the unanswerable mass of 
evidence in favor of the specific identity of the races of men, he 
takes a new position, and whilst admitting an unity of species, he 
asserts a diversity of origin. He endeavors to establish in his first, 
article the preliminary position, that there are certain definite zo- 
ological provinces, the fauna and flora in each of which must have 
been created in the province itself, and not distributed thither by 
migration from a central point. He then maintains that each 
province has its own race of men, which could not have come from 
a single pair, but must have been created each in the province 
where we find it. These positions he thinks fully consistent with 
the Bible, which he affirms only gives the origin and history of the 
white race, and alludes to none other. 

This is a clear abandonment of the old position on this ques- 
tion, and a concession of the unanswerable grounds on which the 
specific unity of the race has been established. The attack has 
been shifted to a point further back, and one which can only be 
properly reached by historical testimony. But we apprehend that 
this new position, which is however not original with, or peculiar to 
Professor Agassiz, will soon yield as completely to the truth as the 
old one, and that this great and solemn question will be one of the 
ruled cases in science. 

His views when analyzed resolve themselves into the following 
positions, namely: (1.) That animals are geographically distribu- 
ted in distinct and separate zoological provinces ; (2.) That they 
are so isolated in these provinces as to make it impossible that they 
could have come forth from a common centre ; (3.) That they 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



439 



must therefore have been separately created in these provinces ; 
(4.) That man is found distributed in the same provinces ; (5.) 
That therefore like the fauna and flora of these provinces, each 
race must have been created in the locality it occupies, and could 
not possibly have been distributed from a common centre, or origi- 
nated from a single pair. The weakness of his general position 
may be perceived, when it is thus drawn out in logical method ; and 
it will be seen at a glance that the conclusion rests on a chain of 
assumptions, any one of which being disproved, the chain is broken, 
and the conclusion falls to the ground. Let us then test the 
strength of these successive links, and see whether his theories 
rest on facts, or his facts warrant his conclusions. 

It might seem presumptuous in us to challer^e such high au- 
thority as that of Agassiz, who is confessedly Lie Neptune of 
modern zoology : but we may venture to suggest that the pre- 
sumption is in the other direction — that even Neptune himself 
could not be allowed to sway his trident over the domains of other 
authorities ; and that a man may be a peerless ichthyologist who 
is neither a profound logician nor a safe interpreter ; and as he has 
discarded all authority in taking his position, he will be the last 
to demand a submission to his own mere authority, however great 
it may be. We shall therefore freely canvass his views, whilst, at 
the same time, we cheerfully recognize his eminence as a natu- 
ralist, and the manly reverence with which he speaks of the Bible 
and what he.deems to be its teachings. 

His preliminary position is, that animals are geographically 
distributed in separate provinces, in which the same species ap- 
pears in different provinces and in different parts of the same 
province, at intervals that preclude the hypothesis of a common 
origin, and demand that of a separate creation. There is noth- 
ing in this position that necessarily infringes on any Bible truth 
or assertion, and our sole objection to it is, that there is no suffi- 
cient difficulty that demands it as a hypothesis, and no sufficient 
evidence that sustains it as a fact. The simple question to which 
it is at last resolved, is, whether the geographical distribution of 
animals may be accounted for by natural agencies dispersing 
them from a common centre, or whether a miracle must be as- 
sumed to account for it ; and if so, whether the only miracle that 
meets the case, is that of a separate creation of the inhabitants 
of each separate province. 

We are not prepared to deny tha i there are great zoological 



440 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



centres, each having its surrounding province whose fauna and 
flora are peculiar, but the sense in which this is true does not 
avail the new theory, and the sense in which it asserts these prov- 
inces is one in which they do not exist. The sense in which this 
is true, is, that there are different regions of the earth whose 
species are distinct and peculiar, or whose varieties are so marked 
as to indicate the action of local and provincial agencies. In 
this sense however it is of no avail to support the position that 
unity of species may consist with diversity of origin, for the 
species are diverse, and the varieties indicative of local action 
alone, and not separate creation. The sense in which the theory 
asserts such provinces, is that in which the species are the same ; 
but so far as they are the same, the provinces are the same, and 
not different. And if the few facts on which the theory rests 
were multiplied to such an extent as to make all the species of 
all the provinces the same, it is plain that there would be no dis- 
tinct provinces at all, and the theory must perish by the very 
completeness of its success. Its entire force then depends on the 
confounding of these two facts, which are totally distinct. Had 
exactly the same species been found in all the provinces there 
would have been no provinces, except in regard to the topograph- 
ical lines of separation ; and had the species of all the provinces 
been different, it would not have availed in this argument, where 
the species of the races is conceded to be the same. Let us then 
examine whether there are these broad and clear lines of topo- 
graphical separation. It is obvious that no such lines exist, from 
the fact that no two naturalists have been able to agree in their 
identification. The provinces overlap and interpenetrate one 
another to such an extent as to show that the cause is to be 
sought, not in the creation of separate races, but in the action of 
local and physical causes on races already created. 

The same species we grant occurs in very different localities ; 
but in almost every case, in such localities alone as could be 
reached by ordinary migration. Thus we know that the domestic 
animals have been spread. When America was discovered none 
of them were found here but the dog, whose use for draught in 
the polar regions suggests the reason and mode of his introduc- 
tion in that direction. The lion, tiger, elephant, etc., are found 
in Asia and Africa, but not in America, Australia or Polynesia, in 
the same climates, because they are separated from these regions 
by barriers impassable to them, and man has no motive to in- 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



441 



troduce them by artificial means. The vermin that accompany 
man, as his scavengers — such as rats, mice, cockroaches, flieSj 
fleas, etc. — are never found in nev/ly-discovered islands until aftef 
they have been visited by ships ; showing the mode of their in- 
troduction. Certain provinces are found equally or more favor- 
able to certain animals than those in which man first discovered 
them: if then each species was created in the locality it occupies, 
why were not these localities peopled with them? Why was not 
the camel created m Northern Africa, the reindeer in Iceland, the 
horse in Flanders, and the hog in Berkshire, where they are 
found so admirably to thrive ; and where we know that they have 
been artificially introduced? These questions are unanswerable 
on this theory. 

But facts show that animals are distributed precisely in the 
way which is denied by this theory. Dr. Bachman gives some 
curious and forcible illustrations of this point. The opossum oc- 
curs in the warmer parts of North America, west of the Hudson, 
but in no case east of it, for it is unable to swim, and dreads the 
cold too much to pass round the head-waters of this stream, or 
cross it on the ice. The gofer is found on the southern bank of 
the Savannah, but not on the northern, with precisely the same 
soil and food, because it cannot swim. The soft-shelled turtle is 
found in all the streams and lakes connected with the Mississippi, 
even to the Mohawk and Hudson, but in none south of these 
until we reach the Savannah, because it travels only by water, 
and the streams on that part of the Atlantic slope do not connect 
with the northern or western waters. No eels were found in Lake 
Erie until the opening of the Erie canal, which gave them an 
inlet; they are now plenty. The red fox, which is an arctic 
animal, was only found as low as Pennsylvania forty years ago, 
then it appeared in Virginia, then in the Carolinas, and now it is 
more common than the gray fox. The latter, which is a southern 
animal, has, in like manner, migrated north until it has reached 
Canada. These facts show conclusively that such migrations are 
going on, and suggest the most easy and natural means to ac- 
count for the geographical distribution of animals. The same 
process is going on in regard to vegetables and plants, for whose 
distribution, as they have not the power of voluntary locomotion, 
nature has furnished the most elaborate provision. Some seeds 
are furnished with wings to be carried by the wind ; others with 
hooks to fasten upon the passing animal and thus be transported ; 



442 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



others are carried by water thousands of miles, as tropical produc- 
tions have been stranded by the Gulf Stream on the shores of Ice- 
land ; whilst others are carried in the stomachs of birds and 
beasts many leagues from their native locality. No sooner does 
the coral reef become capable of sustaining vegetable life than it 
is supplied by some of these seed-carriers of nature. Facts on 
this point exist by the hundred. What conceivable need then 
exists for the hypothesis of a new creation, when we see the 
same species repeated in new localities ? 

The only difficulty that remains is, the occurrence of arctic 
plants and animals in the Alpine regions, cut off from their 
natural kindred. But it curiously happens that in the same re- 
view that contains the essay we are answering, there is a com- 
plete solution to this difficulty, unconsciously suggested by Pro- 
fessor Agassiz himself, when speaking on a different subject. He 
explains some of the phenomena of Lake Superior by reference 
to the glacial theory. Now whilst we do not pronounce on this 
theory, yet with its great defender, an objection which may be 
answered by it, will surely not be pressed. If then the bowlders 
and deeply worn furrows of the lake region may be explained by 
this theory, we ask, where is the difficulty of giving the same ac- 
count of the existence of these Alpine fauna and flora? As the 
glacial sea receded to the pole, the arctic animals and plants that 
co-existed with it, would naturally remain on these Alpine heights, 
which were congenial to them, since they would have no induce- 
ments to change their locality. Hence where this recession of the 
ice-line left them isolated on these arctic islands, they would of 
course remain and propagate just as their kindred which receded 
with the glaciers to the pole. Hence, there is nothing in this 
requiring a new creation of lypxes, marmots, and chamois, in the 
regions where they are now found. 

Hence if we concede the existence of clearly-marked zoological 
provinces, as contended for by Professor Agassiz, the facts that 
they run into one another by insensible gradations, that migra- 
tions are going on from one region to another, that arrangements 
for this mode of distribution are now in operation, suggest the 
likelihood that the same arrangements existed in former times, 
and actually effected the distribution which we find. The very 
same principle that requires us to suppose that the geological dis- 
tribution of rocks was made by natural causes such as we now 
see in operation, demands that w T e should hold the same suppo- 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



443 



sition in regard to the zoological distribution of animals. The 
fact on which Prof. A. seems greatly to rely that the later fossils 
of some of these provinces, such as New Holland, have the 
same peculiarities that we find in existing species, really proves 
nothing, but that the same or similar causes were acting in these 
localities then that are acting now, and determines nothing as to 
the precise nature of the causes themselves, whether natural or 
supernatural, creative or merely adaptive. The fact that we find 
dogs in Africa with a naked skin does not prove that dogs were 
created there without hair, for the same thing happens to dogs 
that are removed there with their natural coat. It only proves 
that whenever and however these dogs came there, they were 
subjected to the same influences that are now in operation. Thus 
it is also with the peculiarities of the later fossils, to which Prof. 
A. alludes. The same causes which will explain the distribu- 
tion of existing tribes, will account for the distribution of similar 
tribes at any former geological epoch. But even were this not 
the fact, we cannot argue from the conditions of things before 
the creation of man to that after his creation, for with the appear- 
ance of man began the era of moral government and general law, 
and ceased the era of creation. The earth being designed as the 
dwelling-place and kingdom of man, the mode of creation at the 
beginning of his epoch would likely have reference to his position 
and wants. We may add to this, that if the recently announced 
discovery of a fossil kangaroo in New England be authenticated, 
the whole force of this argument is at once destroyed, and it is 
proven that the animals now peculiar to New Holland, were once 
distributed more widely over the earth. But even if it were 
demonstrated that these causes, in any conceivable mode of their 
operation, are insufficient to account for the effects, it will not fol- 
low that a separate creation in each locality is demanded as the 
only alternative. Some extraordinary agency must be supposed ; 
but is this the only one? If a miracle must be assumed, may it 
not as readily have been in the distribution of these races to their 
present localities, as in their creation within them ? Does not 
universal observation show that direct creation is usually the last 
expedient resorted to, in the attainment of any end? Now what 
is there to demand it as the only alternative here? We submit 
then that there is nothing in the distribution of animals requiring 
a miracle at all ; and that if any such unusual interposition of 
divine power was needed, it is much more likely to have been in 



444 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



the distribution of races already created, than in their separate 
and distinct creation. But we repeat it ; that there is nothing in 
this hypothesis of separate zoological centres of creation that 
conflicts with the Bible in the slightest, and it might fully be ad- 
mitted without affecting a single utterance of revelation. We 
only object to its strength because of the tremendous conclusion 
we are asked to hang upon it. 

But suppose these three links of the chain mended, the fourth 
breaks with the weight that is hung upon it. Giant that there 
are distinct zoological provinces ; that they are so isolated from 
each other that their fauna and flora could not have come forth 
from a common centre ; and that a separate creation in each 
province is the only mode of overcoming the difficulty, — we find 
that the races of men are not co-extensive and identical with these 
alleged zoological provinces. 

One would think, from the confidence with which the learned 
Professor asserts the identity in the two cases, that not only the 
zoological provinces were clearly made out, but the limits of the 
races also plainly and universally ascertained. But there is no 
point in natural history more undetermined than this. Some 
make but three races, others five, others eleven, others still more ; 
but the most remarkable fact is, that Professor Agassiz does not 
positively determine this point himself. He enumerates about a 
dozen zoological provinces, but not more than half that number 
of races. Why this significant silence? If his theory is really 
true, why did he not tell us what the races are, that inhabit these 
provinces? We shall perhaps see the reason as we examine the 
relations of the two distributions. This examination our limits 
will only allow us to make in one or two of these provinces which 
he has mapped out. 

His first province is the arctic, with the Samoyedes, the Lap- 
landers, and the Esquimaux. But can any one suppose that an 
animal so helpless as man, so destitute of natural covering, pro- 
tection, and food, could originate in the bleak and inhospitable 
regions of the pole, where he could obtain neither clothing, fire, 
nor food? If w T e suppose him to have originated in a warmer re- 
gion, and migrated thither, with his acquired knowledge and 
habits, these difficulties vanish ; but if we suppose him created, a 
naked, shivering Troglodyte, amidst the eternal snows, we must 
pile miracle on miracle to account for his continued existence. 
But even 'f this difficulty w 7 ere overcome, the Esquimaux of 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



445 



America are as widely separate from the arctic races of Asia, in 
distance, difficulty of communication, and physical features, as 
the latter are from the adjacent tribes of the Mongolians, or the 
former from the northern tribes of Indians. Why not make an 
Asian arctic, and an American arctic, on the same grounds that a 
distinction is drawn between the southern arctic and the northern 
Mongolian? There is absolutely no ground in the one case that 
does not exist as broadly in the other. The Malay race he as- 
signs to a natural zoological province ; but what it is, he does not 
inform us. It cannot be limited to his tropical Asiatic province, 
for it extends through Polynesia to Western America, by the testi- 
mony of the most accurate observers, even those who deny the 
original unity of the races. The same difficulty exists in the 
provinces of New Holland and Africa. The Tasmanian and Al- 
forian races of the New Holland province differ far more widely 
than the Malay and the Mongolian : and we have shown that 
Africa presents the widest extremes of variety, with every inter- 
mediate shade, from the fair races of Abyssinia to the genuine 
Dahomey negro. But when we come to the American provinces, 
the theory breaks utterly and hopelessly down. He makes four 
such provinces ; one east, and one west of the Rocky Mountains; 
one in tropical America, and one in temperate South America. 
But where are the four races corresponding to them? Do not all 
recognize the same physical type in all our aboriginal tribes? Has 
even Professor Agassiz dissented from this ? How then can the 
facts be cut up to fit the theory? But if we had the four races 
that have been created on this continent, what will we do with 
the Patagonians? The same questions might be asked in regard 
to the Papuan, Feejee, and other races, which though clearly and 
strongly marked cannot be referred to any distinct or definite 
zoological provinces. 

It is abundantly evident from this brief enumeration of facts 
that there is no such coincidence in the geographical distribution 
of the races and that of the plants and animals, such as is asserted 
by this theory. But suppose all these difficulties removed, and 
yet the last step could not legitimately be taken. If the races and 
zoological provinces were identical, that fact clearly could not 
prove that each race was created in its province. All that it could 
prove would be, that the human races, and the fauna and flora 
of each province, were subjected to the same or similar influences, 
giving them this identity of limitation. What these influences 



446 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS 



were, would not be determined by this coincidence of boundary, 
and would therefore remain matter for further investigation. 
Whether they were natural or supernatural would not be deter- 
mined by such identity of circumscription. And if we must as 
sume a supernatural agency, it by no means follows, that creation 
is the only one. The divine power might as readily have been 
exerted in causing these peculiarities, or in distributing these 
races, as in their direct creation ; and if we must assert its inter- 
position to account for the varieties, we have at least the same 
right to affirm the smaller and more ordinary exercise of it, that 
he has to affirm the greater and more extraordinary. 

The fact on which he lays so much stress, that climatic con- 
ditions are not exactly coincident with the various races, will 
prove that climatic conditions are not the only agencies at work 
in producing these varieties ; and nothing more. What these 
other agencies are, and whether distinct creation is the only con- 
ceivable one, is wholly undetermined by this fact. His remark, 
that the adaptations of man to his various localities must have 
been intentional, is true ; but it does not follow from this that 
separate creation of each race was the only way in which this in- 
tention could be carried into effect. We grant that these adapta- 
tions were intentional, and simply affirm that they were brought 
about by an original susceptibility to such adaptations impressed 
by God on man's physical constitution ; and that the same reasons 
for its existence at first require its existence now, and undoubted 
facts prove that it actually does exist. Designing man to be a 
cosmopolite, and to subdue the earth, he impressed him with this 
susceptibility, and the result is, the varieties we find in the races 
of the world. So far then is this designed adaptation of man to 
the various localities in which he is found, from proving that the 
varieties were separately created, it is the very fact that makes 
this supposition unnecessary. 

We thus find this chain of assumptions to break at every link. 
Whilst there are zoological provinces, they are not such as to for- 
bid their occupance by natural and existing causes ; or if supei- 
natural agency were required it is not necessitated to be in the 
form of creation ; and if these points were reached, they would 
not avail us, for the races of men are not identical with these 
provinces ; and if they were, this identity would be explicable by 
that adaptive susceptibility of the human constitution to conform 
itself to the varying conditions in which it is placed, with which 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



447 



man as the destined conqueror of the earth has been furnished ; 
and if some direct and unusual interposition of divine power must 
be supposed, it was much more likely to be in producing these 
varieties from a race already existing than in calling new ones 
into existence. Hence in every part of this new theory we find it 
more completely untenable than the old one. 

There are other proofs of the original unity of the human race, 
the full presentation of which would exceed our limits, and hence 
we can only glance at them in concluding. One of these is drawn 
from the relations that modern philology has detected among the 
languages of the earth. Dr. Young has applied the mathematical 
calculus of probabilities to this subject, and declares the result to 
be, that if eight words in any two languages are found to coincide 
in sound and significance, the probabilities are one hundred thou- 
sand to one, that they were drawn from the same parent language ; 
and that if the coincidences are found in more than eight cases it 
rises to little less than an absolute certainty. Whether this appli- 
cation of the doctrine of probabilities be perfectly satisfactory or 
not to every mind, it at least shows that a small number of 
coincident words compared with the entire vocabulary will be 
sufficient to establish an original connection between different 
languages. Now the researches of the most eminent scholars, 
after much perplexity and overthrow of former opinions, have at 
last reduced the more than two thousand languages of the earth 
to a few families, and established between these families the most 
undoubted affiliation. This affiliation is supported not by a few 
words whose similarity could be accounted for by the imitation of 
natural sounds, or the necessary use of the same organs of articu- 
lation, but by adjectives, nouns, pronouns, numerals, and verbs, 
whose sounds are perfectly arbitrary, and have no conceivable re- 
semblance to the things they are designed to represent. This re- 
semblance is found not only in the sounds of words, but also in 
their grammatical forms. Declensions and cases of nouns, conju- 
gations of verbs with their apparatus of voices, augments and re- 
duplications, are found, like perfect skeletons of a former organ- 
ism, embedded in the languages of the most distant countries. 
Sometimes, as has been shown recently in regard to our American 
Indian languages, the most minute resemblances may exist in 
grammatical forms between many dialects, that have scarcely a 
word in common. The bony skeleton remains, whilst the more 
perishable fleshly integuments of mere sounds have perished. 



448 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



From these facts such scholars as A. von Humboldt, Merian, Klap- 
roth, F. Schlegclj Herder, and others, have inferred that all exist- 
ing languages are derivations from one original tongue now lost. 
The American languages were for some time considered excep- 
tions to this broad generalization, but the researches of Mr. Gal- 
latin, and the more recent investigations of Mr. Schoolcraft, have 
shown that they in like manner contain these conglomerate re- 
mains of ancient speech that indicate their connection with the 
same original tongue. Thus that tendency to the ascertainment 
of a unity in diversity, which is characteristic of all other science, 
is equally evinced in the young and interesting science of com- 
parative philology. 

But a second fact yet more remarkable has been made probable 
by the same researches. It is alleged not only that these various 
languages must have been separated from one another or from an 
original speech, but that this separation was caused by some sud- 
den and violent disruption, the evidence of which remains in the 
relations of these languages as distinctly set forth as the proof of 
the breaking of the strata of the crust of the earth by some former 
convulsion is seen in the broken edges of corresponding rocks that 
stand facing each other on opposite sides of some chasm. This 
is the opinion not of mere credulous bibliolators, but even of those 
who reject the history of the confusion of tongues in Genesis, as 
an oriental fiction, like Herder, and of such scholars as Sharon 
Turner, Abel Remusat, and Niebuhr. These men affirm that the 
differences between these languages are not such as would have 
been produced by the slow and gradual separation of a people 
from natural causes, but such as indicate a sudden and violent 
disruption of their social relations. Whether this disruption was 
the dispersion of Babel cannot be made out from these fossils of 
ancient thought, but this result of philology at least presents a 
most remarkable and startling corroboration, from an unexpected 
quarter, of the facts related in Genesis. 

The bearing of these facts on the question before us, is obvious. 
Were the families of man diverse races, sprung from diverse ori- 
gins, we would expect, in a thing so artificial and conventional 
as speech, to find this diversity clearly marked, and no trace of a 
common origin, either in grammatical forms, or in the signification 
attached to particular words ; and we would also expect to find 
the most ancient languages the most rude and simple in their 
structure. On the contrary, we find the most marvellous resem- 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



449 



blances in form and signification ; and also the most ancient lan- 
guages to be often the most artificial and philosophical in their 
grammatical forms ; and also the repetition of these peculiarities 
of structure and signification in languages that are separated 
geographically by the widest barriers. These facts can be ex- 
plained only on the hypothesis that these languages have had a 
common source, and that they are the conglomerate fragments of a 
formation which now exists only in these imbedded crystals, whose 
fracture and form tell the tale of their common origin and their 
former connection. This then involves necessarily the conclusion 
that these diverse families were once united in one common head, 
and are the offspring of one common parentage, who used this 
primeval and now disintegrated language. 

The mode in which Prof. Agassiz attempts to evade the force 
of this argument is a most remarkable specimen of logic. He 
dismisses it with somewhat of a sneer, and deems its force broken 
by the simple remark, that it is as natural for men to talk as it is 
for dogs to bark, or asses to bray, and that one bird does not learn 
its song from another ; and hence we could not from the phenom- 
ena of language infer unity of origin. Now. if one bird does not 
learn its song from another, does this prove that one human being 
does not learn its language from another? And aside from the 
fact that it is not natural for dogs to bark, as they never do it 
in their wild state, is there no difference between an inarticulate 
cry and the use of a set of conventional sounds to designate cer- 
tain thoughts? Does not the one imply previous arrangement 
and agreement, where the sounds are the same, whilst the other 
does not? If we argued man's original unity from his instinctive 
cries, it were pertinent to refer us to the instinctive cries of ani- 
mals ; but when, from the fact that the same or similar colloca- 
tions of syllabic sounds are applied by different races to the same 
natural objects, we argue that there must have been a previous 
agreement that these sounds should designate these objects, the 
reference to the braying of asses, etc., looks really like trifling. 

Another proof of the original unity of the families of mankind 
may be drawn from their ancient traditions. Mr. R. W. Mackay, 
of the modern English school of rationalism, has published a book 
called the Progress of the Intellect, which has all the dulness of 
learning without any of its profundity, and all the malice of wit 
without any of its keenness. In this book he endeavors to serve 
up all the religions of the earth into a sort of olla-podrida, with 

29 



450 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



Paganism and Nihilism for spice and sweetening 1 , and enough of 
Christianity to act, if possible, as salt. The savory dish thus pro- 
duced, we have no disposition to deal out at any length. But 
there is one respect in which his efforts are not wholly useless. 
Gathering together with no small industry the religious traditions 
of different nations, he has furnished corroborations of the Scrip- 
tural record, which infidelity would have rejected, had they been 
presented by a Gale, a Bryant, or a Faber, as mere credulous fan- 
cies. He admits the universal tradition that points to central Asia 
as the home and cradle of the human race. He also presents the 
chaos ; the darkness that covered the face of the great deep ; the 
brooding of the Spirit of God upon the surface of the waters; the 
myths and traditions of various nations alluding to a primeval 
creation of light; the unfolding of the firmament; the order of the 
six days' creation and the rest of the Sabbath ; the primitive in- 
nocence of man ; his location in the garden of Eden ; the rivers 
and trees of Paradise ; the agency of the woman and serpent in 
the Fall ; the sacredness of the number seven ; the flood, with the 
ark, olive branch and dove ; the expectation of a Messiah ; the 
reign of righteousness on the earth ; and of a final conflagration. 

How can these facts be fairly explained? When the traveller 
in France finds in all its provinces traditions and representations 
of one man, sometimes coarse and rude, at other times exquisite 
and accurate, yet all retaining those lineaments that seem burnt 
into the memory of her people — are not these facts as absolutely 
decisive of the existence of Napoleon as if he actually saw the 
great Corsican ? Were any man to attempt seriously to prove that 
Napoleon was only a myth, and these traditional memorials but 
symbols of the French ideas of glory, having no origin in some 
original ar.d common fact, would he not be regarded as little better 
than an idiot? Yet why should that be insane fatuity in modern 
history, which is profound wisdom in ancient? Why should this 
reasoning make a man a fool when exercised about things that 
are well known, and a philosopher when exercised about things 
that are but little known? If these universal and minute memo- 
rials of Napoleon would prove his existence, at least, if we had no 
other evidence, must not these wide, uniform and clear traditions 
of early facts in the world's history prove that they also existed? 
Must there not have been an original ground-work of historical 
fact to support traditions so uniform and striking? It is not neces- 
sary to our present purpose to prove /,hat the precise facts recorded 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



451 



in Genesis are the originals from which these copies were made, 
although this we might show to be probable, independent of any 
proof drawn from the divine origin of the Bible. All that we need 
is simply the obvious and necessary admission that these copies 
must have had originals ; and that these originals were the same 
general facts. That nations who have never had any connection 
in their early history should have happened to invent so many 
traditions so nearly alike, is, on the doctrine of probabilities, to the 
last degree improbable, if not wholly impossible. The most natu- 
ral and rational explanation surely is, that these traditions are the 
old household memories of the primeval homestead, yet lingering 
around the scattered family, which, though sometimes clear as the 
recollections of the child who has tarried at the parental hearth 
until its scenes and teachings are written indelibly on his memory, 
and at others, crude and vague as the dreaming reminiscences of 
him who was torn away in the tenderness of undeveloped child- 
hood, yet all point back and converge in a common family, and a 
common home, to which we may trace these wandering tribes of 
the children of men. 

Not less conclusive, did our space permit its full development, is 
the psychological argument for the unity of the race. The great 
mystery in the nature of man is Sin. Like the bottomless gulf 
in the Roman Forum, it is a fathomless abyss whose origin none 
can explain, and whose yawning greediness nothing can fill but 
the immolation of the noblest and best that has ever borne the 
form of our common nature. It is this strange and fearful fact 
that sets man apart from all other earthly creatures in a mournful 
isolation of experience and history. When we go down into the 
depths of the human soul and search the chamber of its records 
for the story of this monstrous birth, we are met at the very 
threshold by Conscience, at once the hoary chronicler of the past, 
and the terrible prophet of the future, which gives us the clue to this 
mystery. It points us to the soiled and shattered fragments of 
noble powers and high affections, which once stood up in kingly 
erectness, each on its pedestal and throne in the human soul. 
It traces out in these noble ruins the record of some fearful con- 
vulsion in the past, that cast down and shivered these old and 
beautiful occupants of this stately Pantheon of thought and affec- 
tion. It tells us that man is not what he once was, but is fallen, 
and has become a guilty and godless thing. Telling us thus of a 
fall, it tells us of an ancient unity, of a time when man was one 



452 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



in the unfallen past, as lie is one in the fallen present, just as un- 
answerably as the columns and capitals of the silent temple of the 
sun, tell us of a time when it once stood in the unity of a queenly 
and faultless symmetry beneath the cloudless skies of Palmyra. 
Now, these tellings of conscience are heard in every branch of the 
scattered family of man. The same sad proofs of brotherhood in 
sin and sorrow, of common parentage and common fall, of de- 
pravity transmitted by universal and hereditary taint, meet us in 
every race. The same wail of remorseful sorrow comes up in 
mysterious plaint from all; the same mournful memories of pri- 
meval purity now soiled and dishonored ; the same gleaming 
visions of an Eden innocence that has faded away, leaving only 
these mute longings after its unforgotten brightness ; the same dire 
and terrific phantoms of guilt that come forth to awe and affright; 
the same deep yearnings after the unseen and the eternal in the 
soul's deepest stirrings; and the same sublime hopes that shoot 
upward to the "high and terrible crystal," — are found alike in 
every race of every hue. The unspeakable gift of Christ and him 
crucified, is as wide in its efficacy as these mournful symptoms 
of malady. The lofty intellects of a Pascal and a Newton, do not 
grasp it with a keener relish and a deeper sympathy than the 
besotted CafTre in the lonely wilds of Africa, or the crouching 
Pariah in the steaming jungles of India. The Cross is that won- 
drous talisman that calls forth from every adventitious guise the 
universal manhood and brotherhood of the races. And when the 
lowliest African is "born again," in that heavenly birth that links 
into a new and holier unity the fallen descendants of the first 
Adam, he is found to exult with as pure a gladness as the honored 
heir of the proudest and noblest blood. O ! it is this blessed fact 
that stands in lofty and indignant rebuke of that cold and cruel 
philosophy that would wrest from the humble and the oppressed 
the only boon that is beyond the grasp of an unfeeling avarice. 
And this whole class of facts, pointing back as it does so unerring- 
ly, to some great spiritual disruption in the psychological history 
of our race, proves that there was once a time and place in the 
history of that race when they were one in that primeval and un- 
fallen brightness from which they have so sadly and widely lapsed. 

And now shall Ave give up this great truth of the universal 
brotherhood of man, around which throng such masses of evi- 
dence, because of the few flippant questions which a finical phi- 
losophy may think unanswered ? Shall this mighty thought that 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



453 



thrilled even a Roman audience, in the memorable words of 
Terence, this thought that has fired the hearts of the martyr 
spirits of the world in their weary toils for an erring race, this 
thought that underlies the whole enterprise of Christian missions, 
that brought Jesus Christ from heaven and carried Paul to the 
ends of the earth, be abandoned because one man's skin and hair 
do not resemble another's ? Shall the trifling points of difference 
that exist between the races of men be allowed to prove that as to 
the human species, which they are not allowed to prove as to any 
other species of living things ? Shall the pictures of black races 
on Egyptian tombs be held to prove their separate creation, when 
the fact that other races, equally distinct in all their peculiarities, 
are there found depicted, is not held to prove the same thing in 
regard to them? Is there not something unspeakably cruel and 
heartless in thus cutting loose these hopeless and unfortunate 
races from all the sympathies of a common brotherhood in the 
family of man ; in robbing them of the most priceless blessings 
that are left them in their barbarism, a birthright in Adam and a 
hope in Christ ; and making their very degradation, which should 
move our sympathies to act for their relief, the pretext for a fresh 
outrage the most monstrous and atrocious? Rob these feeble and 
helpless nations of their beautiful lands where they repose in 
happy indolence : rob them of their gold and silver and gems 
that they have gathered from their rivers and mountains ; rob 
them of their little worldly substance and their humble homes; 
for these things affect not their highest rights, and their loss 
may be repaired : but oh ! rob them not of their parentage in a 
common ancestry, the only fact that is left to encourage us to 
labor for their elevation ; rob them of everything else, but rob 
them not at least of hope ; and consign them not in their neglect 
and misfortune to that hopeless orphanage of degradation, which, 
by cutting them off from their heritage in the blood that flows 
from Adam, must also cut them off from that richer heritage which 
they may obtain in the blood that flows from Christ. Tell us not 
that these results are not necessary to the position we are oppos- 
ing, when even an Agassiz, with all his high moral feeling, scru- 
ples not, as the consequence of his doctrine, to denounce those 
noble and expansive charities that would girdle the earth with 
Christian churches as mere "mock philanthropy," and idle efforts 
to contravene the settled arrangements of Providence. 

No. We will not give up yet the great truth of the common 



454 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION. 



brotherhood of humanity; we will not disown our hapless, unfor- 
tunate brother because he has become a wandering outcast; we 
will not abandon the hopes we cherish that these scattered fami- 
lies shall yet be restored to some of the homestead privileges which 
they have forgotten. These prodigal wanderers shall yet hear a 
voice that shall awaken the memories of a blessed home that is 
lost, and shall kindle the hopes of a more blessed home that is to 
be found. The dreams of an unforgotten Eden shall yet be em- 
bodied in the better paradise of the future, when they shall come 
from the north and the south, the east and the west, and shall sit 
down in the kingdom of God. The cannibal Zealander shall 
come blending in the harmlessness of the dove before the cross ; 
the fierce Malay, the wild Camanche, the gigantic Patagonian, 
and the gentle islander of the sea, shall all come together at the 
feet of Jesus, with hearts that shall throb and thrill with the 
clasping love of a common origin, a common trust and a common 
destiny. The grovelling Bushman, the squalid Esquimaux, and 
the crouching Hindoo, shall arise from the dust of their degrada- 
tion, and stand forth in the lofty erectness of a manhood in Christ 
Jesus. The sublime d learnings of Plato, the rapt numbers of the 
Sibyl, the vague longings of philosophy, the high visions of poe- 
try, and above all, the magnificent pictures of revelation, the ex- 
ulting strains of Isaiah as he gazed on the gorgeous future, the 
deep sympathies of Paul as he felt the throes of the travailing 
earth that mutely longed for the manifestation of the sons of God, 
and the higher, grander gazings of the lonely seer of Patmos as 
he saw the gatherings to the great day of God Almighty, and 
heard the voice of many waters, and the voice of mighty thun- 
derings, and the voice of a great multitude, saying, Alleluia, for 
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, — all these shall be fully and 
gloriously realized in that future when the scattered and divided 
nations shall be gathered into the glorious sonship of God, and 
the unity that links them to Adam in one direction, shall receive 
its bright counterpart and fulfilment in the noble unity that links 
them to Christ in the other. It is because we believe the unity 
in the one direction to be the condition of the unity in the other, 
that we so earnestly contend for it. And it is because we believe 
that this cold, heartless, Cain-like theory, that would discard the 
brotherhood of the unfortunate and degraded because of their 
misfortune, must cripple the energies of those who labor for this 
magnificent hope of the future, that we lift up against it a protest 



THE ETHNOLOGICAL OBJECTION". 



455 



so earnest and emphatic. And it is because we know that this 
selfish monopoly of the blood of Adam shall melt away before the 
blaze of this future Sabbath of the earth, that we now so confi- 
dently predict its overthrow, and anticipate the time when it 
shall not only be believed that God hath made of one blood all 
nations of men to dwell upon the face of the whole earth, but 
when in the fusing brightness of these Sabbatic scenes of the 
future, the touching and beautiful prayer of Christ shall receive 
its broadest and grandest fulfilment, " Neither pray I for these 
alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their 
word ; that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and 
I in thee, that they also may be one in us," Even so, amen, and 
amcki* 



€§t itoimt} nf tolatimt nnh literal §>ntm; 

WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO GEOLOGY. 

TWO LECTURES. 

BY 

L. W. GREEN, D.D., 

FEESIDENT OF HAMPDEN SIDNEY COLLEGE. 



L 

GENERAL SPIRIT OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY — MIRACLES — RECENT 
ORIGIN OP MAN AND THE FINAL CONFLAGRATION. 

The spirit of infidelity is not the spirit of true philosophy — 
intellectual, physical or moral. Doubt is to the mind what 
hunger is to the body — the stimulus which nature, or the God of 
nature, has provided to incite and prepare us for the enjoyment 
of healthy nutriment — but it is not that very nutriment itself. 
Habitual skepticism is intellectual disease — the atrophy of mind, 
the ordinary cause, the invariable symptom of mental inanition, 
or ill-digested knowledge — and bears the same relation to that 
calm love of truth, and scrutiny of evidence, which characterizes 
all large and healthy understandings, that the insane and insati- 
able craving of some dyspeptic patient, after stimulants and trash, 
bears to the discriminating relish and healthy appetite which be- 
long to every vigorous and well-developed human frame. To 
doubt maybe "the beginning of philosophy;" but devout and 
assured faith in God and nature — this is its glorious and trium- 
phant consummation. Hence, of all those mighty men who have 
stood foremost in every department of inquiry — have enlarged the 
boundaries of knowledge — have fathomed the depths of the human 
understanding — unveiled the mysteries of nature — penetrated the 
infinitudes of space, or mastering the whole wide domain of matter 
and of mind, have given new laws to guide our investigations in 
either — your Bacon, your Locke, your Newton, Leibnitz, Des 
Cartes, Euler, Kepler, Tycho Brache — of all those mighty men 
of old, who tower before us, there, upon the page of history, in 
their colossal grandeur and gigantic strength, high above all their 
fellows, the luminaries of their own age, and of ail succeeding 
generations — scarce one has been an unbeliever. " I had rather 
believe all the fables of the Legend, the Shaster and the Koran," 
exclaims Lord Bacon, " than that this universal frame is without 



460 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



a mind." And, in his "Advancement of Learning," a A Lttle or 
superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline a man's mind to 
atheism ; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to 
religion." 

On the contrary, there is a sympathy deep, intense, all-pervad- 
ing — a harmony profound, stupendous, universal, between the 
revelations of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science, in 
the broadest range and the boldest grasp of its largest and most 
comprehensive generalizations — in the whole spirit, tone and 
temper of its legitimate inquiries — in that attitude of devout 
humility and conscious ignorance, yet of erect and fearless, of 
hopeful and even confident attention, with which she stands in 
the great temple of nature, and traces each "Footprint" of the 
Almighty, whether amidst the infinitude of space or amidst the 
depths of a past eternity — the chronicles of extinct races, or the 
wreck of departed worlds. 

If the Creator of the universe be, indeed, an intelligent and 
moral agent — infinite in wisdom and goodness, as boundless in 
his power — then, besides the physical universe around us, there 
is another of rational and moral beings, of correspondent extent, 
variety and grandeur. 

Now let any one appropriate, if he can, at a single glance of 
thought, all that our modern astronomy has discovered — the uni- 
verse of greatness above us, which the telescope has revealed, 
and the descending universe of littleness, which the microscope 
has made known — let him accept her boldest assertions as indu- 
bitable truths, and follow onward in her most adventurous specu- 
lations, till the fevered brain grows dizzy, and the strained in- 
tellect bewildered, as whirling by suns and systems, as they rise, 
in rapid and dazzling succession, in ever-enlarging magnitude 
and increasing splendor around, he strives to picture to his im- 
agination that lapse of ages and those intervals of space for 
which arithmetic has no formula, and language no expression, 
and the mind of man, in its boldest efforts, no approximate con- 
ception. Then let him turn to the Bible, and in the revelations 
there will he find the parallel and exact counterpart of all which, 
in the grandeur of the material creation, has most awed and sub- 
dued, most enlarged and exalted, his conceptions. Will he not 
find here, too, the march and the movement of a high moral 
administration — the progressive evolution of one stupendous sys- 
tem, coeval with all ages, and coextensive with all worlds — the 



AND NATUKAL SCIENCE. 



461 



omnipresent majesty of one supreme and all-pervading legislation, 
binding together, as in one bond of sympathy, the remotest parts 
of this great moral universe — system after system of intelligent 
existences — angels and archangels, and cherubim and seraphim, 
rising one above another, in ever-ascending progression, indefi- 
nitely high, until at last the eye of inspiration is dimmed with 
excessive radiance, and the telescope of revelation rests upon those 
upper Intelligences — those mysterious and nameless " Powers in 
heavenly places" for which earth presents no analogies, and 
language has no titles — yet unto them " is made known through 
Christ the manifold ivisdom of God ?" 

And now, when he learns that the whole family in heaven look 
with intensest sympathy upon our fallen race ; that the Great 
Father of all has so loved the world that he sent his own Son 
upon an errand of infinite compassion to redeem it — that he who 
was mighty to save, u travailed in the greatness of his strength" 
and all the attributes of the Godhead were summoned and con- 
centrated here, as for some high achievement ; while he contem- 
plates with adoring wonder this amazing condescension, will he 
not find an analogy, at least, if not an adequate illustration, in 
the ways of him who, though he has garnished the heavens by 
his power, and called forth the stars by number, hath given to 
Saturn his girdle of light, and to the sun his diadem of fire — yet 
hath stooped to gild the insect's wing, and to pencil the hues of 
the lowliest floweret of the valley ; nay, hath not disdained to 
lavish all the resources of his infinite wisdom, his boundless 
benevolence, and Almighty power, in moulding the minutest 
portion of the minutest member of one of those invisible animal- 
cute, whose teeming myriads live, and revel, and die unseen, 
amidst the sweets and fragrance of a single flower. Doth God 
care for the flower of the field ? — and will he not care for you, 
oh ye of little faith ? 

Did it become him thus to concentrate all the attributes of the 
Godhead, and lavish all the resources of omnipotence on such as 
these, and is it inconsistent with the dignity of his exalted nature 
that he should stoop to redeem a whole lost world of immortal 
spirits 1 

Again, long centuries before Herschell handled a telescope, or 
Newton had studied the laws of the planetary motions, or Cuvier 
had touched a fossil bone, or Hume had reasoned upon the per- 
manency of a course of nature ; while all those astounding facts 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



of the cognate sciences, astronomy and geology, which have 
thrown such startling light upon the history of our own, and 
perhaps all other globes, lay buried deep beneath the huge strata, 
where they had been chronicled for ages, or lost amidst the un- 
fathomed depths of space ; a Galilean fisherman has furnished 
us with a broad outline of modern science ; distinctly stated the 
fundamental sophism of that atheistic metaphysic, which consti- 
tutes the basis of all the infidelity of modern times, and given to 
it the very refutation which is offered by the most distinguished 
geologists of our day. In the last days, according to the apostle 
(2 Pet. ch. iii.), shall arise a new form of infidelity. The ob- 
jector shall take his stand upon the invariable operation of 
nature's laws, and immutable succession of nature's phenomena : 
" In the last days shall come scoffers, saying, where is the promise 
of his coming, for since the fathers fell asleep, all things remain 
as they were from the beginning of the creation V To this the 
apostle answers, in language precisely corresponding with that 
of our scientific geologist, and capable, w T ith a very slight and 
legitimate modification, of including all his most important prin- 
ciples : "The present condition of our globe is not the first, and 
shall not be its final state. Our present continents were once 
submerged beneath the ocean, from which 'el vdaiog' they at 
length arose, were then swept by a terrific deluge, and having 
thus passed through successive catastrophes, are yet reserved for 
another and more fearful visitation, — 1 Resetted unto fire? " But 
think not that this destruction spoken of will be annihilation ; 
it will be purification rather. The former condition of our globe 
adapted it for the abode of irrational animals only ; the last great 
crisis in its history, prepared it for the higher order of rational 
and moral agents. The next will be another step in the ascend- 
ing series of God's providential arrangements, and instead of a 
habitation for imperfect fallen beings, it will be the theatre of a 
glorious moral manifestation, the blissful abode of holy, happy in- 
telligences. "Nevertheless, we look for new heavens and a new 
earthy wherein dwelleth righteousness." 

Indeed, the whole tone and tendency of our modern geology, 
when rightly understood, is intensely and profoundly Christian. 
It furnishes by far the most conclusive of all arguments for the 
existence of a God ; explodes the atheistic theory of an infinite 
series of beings ; and thus dispels the last remaining doubt that 
might otherwise have thrown its shadow over the soul of man. 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



463 



ft refutes the only plausible objection that has ever been devised 
against the miraculous evidence of the Gospel History (Hume's 
celebrated argument against miracles) ; for it lives amidst the in- 
numerable miracles of ages past, and reads and acknowledges 
their record, engraven indelibly upon the everlasting rocks. Its 
spirit, rightly understood, is the spirit of awe and reverence. It 
places us at once, amidst the infinitude of ages and the im- 
mensity of sn,ace ; it tells of catastrophes long since past, and of 
other catastrophes yet to come ; of stupendous powers, even now 
at work all around us, far surpassing our conception, which have 
left the traces of their agency deep on the whole face of nature; 
in the huge mountains they have heaped up, the valleys they 
have hollowed out ; in the masses of dislocated strata, torn from 
their native beds, and dashed together in wild confusion ; or 
twisted and bent in all directions from their horizontal position, 
as if held fast by some Titanic hand, and writhing amidst the 
agonies of some terrible convulsion. 

Amidst the wild play of these terrific powers, the mighty suc- 
cession of these incalculable ages, she traces the steady march 
of one vast and comprehensive plan ; and the direct interposition, 
often repeated and distinctly visible, of the same almighty power, 
which originated the whole design at first, and still presides over 
every movement of the complicated machinery. The theology 
of natural science, then, is in perfect harmony with the theology 
of the Bible. She starts with one instinctice principle, one in- 
tuitive conviction, of the invariable connection between a cause 
and its appropriate effect; and by the light of this single 
principle, she deciphers the hieroglyphics of dynasties long en- 
tombed, and penetrates the mysteries of the celestial motions, 
and rises, step by step, with irresistible demonstration, to a First 
Great Cause, that can exist, without absorbing all subordinate 
causes into his own mysterious being, and operate without merg- 
ing all inferior agency in his own inscrutable omnipotence. But 
she bears along with her another principle, alike immediate, 
universal, irresistible, coeval with the origin of the race, coexten- 
sive with the globe, inseparable from the constitution of our 
nature — the intuitive conviction of the relation between right and 
wrong, that there is a moral element in man, and a moral law in 
the universe, that the highest power and the highest right are at 
one, and both are enthroned, supreme over all worlds. 

And now that almighty power and infinite holiness are en- 



464 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



throned together, let natural science accumulate her facts and 
multiply her demonstrations. Let Astronomy enlarge each world 
into a system, and each system into a universe of suns, pouring 
their Mazing radiance over our midnight skies, with their attend- 
ant planets, sweeping over orbits of illimitable extent. Let Geol- 
ogy transform each individual of its extinct races into a separate 
species ; and each species into the representative of an era ; and 
expand each era over incalculable ages. Let the. eye of man 
be kindled up with seraphic vision, and the intellect of man be 
moulded to the stature of tall archangels, that he may stand upon 
some high eminence in the upper skies, and looking abroad over 
the immensity around him, may discover new systems of worlds, 
which no telescope as yet has brought within the scope of human 
vision ; and from that new and untrodden field of observation, 
gather fresh evidences of the existence of a God, and fresh illus- 
trations of all bis attributes ; yet would the Christian welcome 
joyfully, and appropriate each successive revelation. For at each 
step, in the onward progress of this high argument, as fact was 
piled on fact, and illustration on illustration, and this ethereal 
intelligence, kindling with the grandeur of his theme, bore every 
understanding and every will along upon the rapid tide of a re- 
sistless and overwhelming demonstration, still, as the earth faded 
from our view, and nought but immensity and eternity was there 
around us, would not the reverence, and solemnity, and breathless 
awe of eternity rest upon our spirits? Nay, could that audacious 
dream of ancient and modern impiety be realized, and the mys- 
tery, that ever from of old, has shrouded the invisible and eternal 
one from human gaze, be all laid bare, and we be introduced into 
the presence-chamber of the Most High, and stand face to face 
with God ; would we not find there too, enthroned above all 
worlds, eternal justice and almighty power? and beneath the 
broad blaze of that omniscient eye, and with all our sins upon us, 
would not the language of nature be the echo of that voice, which 
startled the patriarch of old, when in visions of the night, when 
deep sleep falleth upon men, "A Spirit passed before his face, and 
the hair of his head stood up," and a voice was heard amidst the 
stillness of the midnight, "Shall mortal man be just with God? 
A man with his maker /" And the awe-struck patriarch ex- 
claimed, "How shall man be just with God? For he is not a 
man as I am, that I should enter into judgment with him ; neither 
is there a day's-man betwixt us, that he might lay his hand upon 



AND NATUKAL SCIENCE. 



465 



us both." Such, then, is the theology of natural science. Such 
the utmost goal of her most magnificent discoveries, and proudest 
demonstrations. They "shut us up" absolutely to the "faith." 
They serve as a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, in whom 
alone, "God can be just, and justify the ungodly." 

We have thus presented a brief and rapid view of that mutual 
harmony which prevails between the discoveries of science and 
the revelations of the Bible, in their broad outline, their general 
tone and spirit, their tendency and ultimate results. 

That amidst this general harmony there should nevertheless 
arise apparent discrepancies and real difficulties, difficulties more 
easy to be discovered than to be solved, lies manifestly in the na- 
ture of the case, and will surprise no one who remembers those 
strange and inexplicable anomalies that present themselves in the 
phenomena of nature; those irregularities in the movements of 
the universe that seem to threaten its destruction ; those pertur- 
bations from unseen causes in the orbits of our planets ; those 
huge chasms in the order of the creation, where its progress seems 
to be suddenly arrested, its harmony interrupted, its best estab- 
lished analogies all defiled ; yet that, in every instance, unwaver- 
ing confidence in the very harmony thus apparently violated, has 
suggested the true solution; and the solution, when attained, has 
confirmed the harmony ; thus, by progressive approximation, es- 
tablishing the scientific assurance that each apparent anomaly 
will hereafter be merged in some higher law, and the difficulties 
which our ignorance has suggested will be removed, as heretofore, 
by our advancing knowledge. It is manifestly impossible, that 
any human theory should be able to embrace and harmonize all 
the phenomena of the physical or moral universe, for the human 
mind is finite ; and the scheme of the universe, devised by an in- 
finite intelligence, if not absolutely infinite, like its author, is yet 
vast, beyond all powers of conception ; including all worlds and 
all systems, with their myriad inhabitants, and their manifold re- 
lations ; stretching over the whole infinitude of space, and eter- 
nity of duration. Hence, the very advance in science which solves 
one difficulty, often discovers many more to be solved ; for our 
ignorance and our knowledge seem to be inseparable correlatives, 
the opposite poles of the same mysterious potency; and every en- 
largement of the boundaries of the known, is a correspondent ex- 
tension of the vast and limitless unknown. Let him, therefore, 
declaim against apparent difficulties in the Bible, whose theory 

30 



466 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION" 



can comprehend and explain all the mysteries in the phenomena 
of nature, and in the existence and character of the God of na- 
ture ! For, let it not be forgotten, that if the Bible be from God, 
then there is not only a probability, but a certainty, that it will be 
liable to the same objections, and from the same causes, which are 
urged against his existence, and his character — his natural gov- 
ernment and his moral legislation. That mysterious and incom- 
prehensible eternity of God, without a beginning and without an 
end, present through all time, yet without relation to time ! That 
omnipresence of God, pervading all space, yet bearing no relation 
to it — intensely present in the totality of his attributes in the most 
distant portions of his universe, at once, at every moment in time, 
and every point in space ! That invisible and fearful moral gov- 
ernment of his, the unchangeable enemy of sin, encompassing us 
on every side, with its terrible instances of moral retribution here, 
and premonitions of still more fearful punishments hereafter ! 
That absolute sovereignty in the distribution of his favors amongst 
men, guided by infinite wisdom doubtless, yet according to a law 
which baffles our scrutiny, and heeds not our murmurs ! Let any 
man consider for a moment what are the ordinary objections 
against divine revelation, and he will find that they are princi- 
pally aimed at the being, or character, or government of God, as 
revealed in the works of nature — and amount to this, that the 
Bible is the book of God, the transcript of his wisdom, holiness 
and justice, imbued with his spirit, and overshadowed by the awful 
majesty of his mysterious being. The most fearful tendency of 
scientific skepticism, metaphysical and physical, in modern times, 
has been and is, to deny the existence of a personal God, and by 
necessary consequence, the reality of all moral distinctions, and all 
moral obligation. The transcendental pantheist does not aim his 
blows at Christianity exclusively or mainly, but at the existence 
of a Deity, distinct from the universe which he has made ; and 
of a moral government distinct from the blind agency of natural 
law. He, even, patronizes Christianity, and honors Christ as the 
" Divine Man" the latest and most wonderful manifestation of 
the infinite in the finite. The school of Lamarck, Oken, and 
other advocates of the development hypothesis, only touch Chris- 
tianity as they may be supposed to sap our faith in the existence 
of God, or the natural immortality of the soil of man. The cel- 
ebrated argument of Hume against the miracles of the Bible, is 
equally conclusive against the miracles of creation, and all the 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



467 



miracles of geology ; and its fundamental principle is accordingly 
applied (in his treatise on the natural history of religion) to anni- 
hilate our belief in the existence of a God. And what is still 
more to our purpose here, it will be found in the course of our dis- 
cussion, that the most serious geological objection against the truth 
of the Bible is based upon a similar assumption. Indeed, we feel 
assured that all objections against the Bible, theoretical or practi- 
cal, whether uttered by philosophy, or indistinctly felt in common 
life, are based upon the vague, almost unconscious impression, 
that " There is no God f and could we produce upon the minds 
of men the profound and abiding conviction of his existence and 
his presence, of the awful majesty that overshadows us, the om- 
niscient eye that rests upon us, the infinite holiness that encom- 
passes us on every side, all the illusions of skepticism would spon- 
taneously vanish. Hence, the great difficulty in practical life is 
not to lead men to believe the miracles of the gospel, but that still 
more stupendous miracle, which by day and night is around us 
everywhere, of an omnipresent Creator, and an invisible and fear- 
ful moral government ; and in philosophy, to disenchant mankind 
of that fond imagination of a law without an intelligent legisla- 
tor, and a course of nature independent of an author op 

NATURE. 

The multitude of objections against Christianity — the variety 
of the sources from which they are derived — the earnestness, in- 
genuity and confidence with which they have been urged — the 
learning, eloquence and genius by which they have been sus- 
tained, have led many to conclude without the labor of investiga- 
tion, that a book against which so many objections had been 
urged, is one of suspicious and objectionable character, and of 
doubtful authority at best. As well might it be contended, that 
the granite ramparts of some rock-bound coast, which, for eigh- 
teen successive centuries, have hurled back the billows that dashed 
in impotent fury at their feet, are of doubtful durability and 
strength. Far from being legitimate occasion of alarm to the 
Christian, or idle exultation to the unbeliever, they really constitute 
an independent and most powerful argument for its divine original. 
For, if the Bible be from God, then it is divine and perfect truth, 
and cannot possibly harmonize with erroneous or defective views 
on any subjects which it treats ; and must, therefore, from the 
very necessity of the case, meet new objections from each new 
phase of human science, in all its revolutions, necessarily impel- 



468 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



feet still. Now Christianity comes forth before the w i>rld with 
high pretensions. She presents a broad front to every assailant. 
As a theory of God and man, of time and eternity, and of the 
universe itself, it sweeps a stupendous circle of thought — stretches 
over the whole wide field of human knowledge — touches upon all 
the varied phenomena of the intellectual, moral and physical cre- 
ation — embraces, in historical narrative and prophetical delinea- 
tion, the whole history of the world as GooVs world, and of the 
human race as one in origin and destiny, through a period of 
more than three thousand years, from the earliest patriarchal ages 
to the Roman emperors, and thence to the end of time — thus pre- 
senting an almost infinitude of points, where it can be confronted 
with the matured results of human investigation in every depart- 
ment of inquiry. With all this, she comes before the world, and 
demands universal belief and universal obedience. She courts 
investigation — she invites scrutiny — she challenges discussion — 
she throws down her gauntlet of defiance to every antagonist — 
and, in every age, a thousand foes have leaped forward to mingle 
in the assault. They come from every quarter, and of every 
character — each hoary superstition, each beardless science. They 
wield every weapon of refined or barbarous warfare, drawn from 
the domain of history or fiction, of imagination or of fact. They 
dig into the bowels of the earth, and hew the granite mountain 
• — they explore the unfathomed depths of space — search the sep- 
ulchres of buried nations — decipher hieroglyph ical inscriptions in 
temples, pyramids and tombs — study the fabulous genealogies, 
and fabulous astronomies of races whose sublime progenitors, ac- 
cording to their own account, must have been contemporaries of 
the Saurian tribes of an earlier world. 

There is not a false religion upon earth that could bear the 
test of such a scrutiny for a single year — that would not vanish 
instantaneously before the light of a single science. The tele- 
scope and microscope alone would suffice to overthrow all the an- 
cient religions of Farther Asia. That the sacred Scriptures should 
have come forth not only unharmed, but victorious from all the 
conflicts of eighteen centuries ; that not one of their fifty writers 
has ever uttered or suggested an opinion contrary to any of those 
facts which the lapse of twenty-three hundred years has revealed ; 
that each new discovery in science — each fact drawn forth from 
pyramid or pillar, from sepulchre or coin, from mutilated monu- 
ment or half-defaced inscription, should only serve to throw new 



AND NATUKAL SCIENCE. 



469 



light upon their meaning, and add new evidence to their credi- 
bility, is, perhaps, the completest specimen which the whole range 
of human learning has yet afforded of the truth of a theory es- 
tablished by millions of independent harmonies; and mounting 
up, in their combined ana multiple result, to billions of probabili- 
ties in its favor, with absolutely nothing to the contrary. 

The history of these objections against Christianity would be, 
indeed, her proudest vindication. Geology herself, in all her 
cycles, does not present more curious specimens of extinct species, 
than these successive infidel objections, long buried and forgotten 
beneath the huge masses of argument and learning, with which 
consecrated genius has overwhelmed and preserved them — at 
once their monument and sepulchre. First, it was objected, 
against the genuineness of the sacred records — " That we have 
not the very works of the evangelists and apostles themselves." 
Sacred learning has distinctly proven that these identical writings 
existed, and were read in public assemblies throughout the civil- 
ized world, during the first century — were quoted by numerous 
writers, their immediate successors, during the three succeeding 
centuries, in such profusion, that the whole New Testament, in 
every essential fact and doctrine, might be reconstructed from the 
quotations by these various authors; Am presenting a larger 
amount of testimony, to this single book, in the course of three 
centuries, than could be gathered, from all the writers, of all 
centuries, in behalf of the G*eek and Roman classics, all com- 
bined. It was then objected, against their " uncorrupted preser- 
vation," " That they b-ad been transmitted, through many cen- 
turies, by means of various manuscripts, written by different 
hands ; and tha^ Mill, and other critics, had discovered a corres- 
ponding number of various readings, casting thus a serious doubt 
over the integrity and authority of the received text." The most 
profound investigations of modern times have proven that all 
these doubtful readings are really of slight importance; and, 
even were each admitted, or the passages in which they occur all 
stricken from the Bible, not one essential doctrine of our faith 
would be, in the slightest degree, affected ; and the great fabric 
of sacred truth would remain as complete in its proportions, its 
symmetry and strength, as some vast cathedral, from whose 
strong foundation, or lofty dome, the hand of folly, or the lapse 
of t'me, had crumbled the minutest portion of the cement, which 



470 



THE HAKMONY OF REVELATION 



served to unite, but did not constitute, the massive marble of 
which the building was composed. 

Driven by successive defeats from the sure terra fir ma of his- 
torical testimony, infidelity took refuge amidst the hieroglyphics 
of Egypt and the astronomy of the Hindoos. Bailly proved, to 
his own satisfaction, from the record of eclipses amongst the 
Hindoos, that the existence of man upon earth was many thou- 
sand years earlier than the Mosaic history would allow; and 
this whimsical vagary of a visionary man, though hooted out of 
France by the wit of Voltaire and the science of D'Alembert, was 
long an established article of faith amongst the enlightened in- 
fidels of England, Scotland and America. Mathematical demon- 
stration and historic testimony have since combined to show that 
these eclipses were calculated clumsily, backwards, for ages that 
were past, and cannot be dated so early as the commencement 
of the '"'Christian era. Some French savans, attached to Napo- 
leon's army, during the expedition into Egypt, discovered mys- 
terious zodiacs, at Denderah and Esneh. Though unable to 
decipher the hieroglyphics with certainty, one thing was indis- 
putable — that the zodiacs were constructed at the lowest, 17,000, 
probably 18,000, years ago ; and the writer well remembers how 
his boyish faith was shaken by the bold assertions and contemp- 
tuous sneers of the Edinburgh Review, against all who hesitated 
to receive their ocular utteraW founded, as they said, upon 
mathematical demonstration. Cl*a.mpollion and his co-laborers 
have read the inscription, and find fnat it belongs to the age of 
Tiberius Csesar. Comparative anatomy, xneantime, had become, 
through the genius of Cuvier, an important field of investigation, 
and presented many striking examples of analogical resemblance 
between the structure of man and that of other animated beings. 
Professor Oken, descending, one day, the Hartz mountains, be- 
held the "beautiful blanched skull of a hind. I picked it up — 
regarded it intensely," says he — " the thing was done." " Since 
that time, the skull has been regarded as a vertebral column." 
Rapidly, over all Europe, and throughout all scientific circles, 
spread the bold hypothesis that the skull is but a development of 
the spine ; part of that other more comprehensive theory of de- 
velopment which represents man — intellectual, moral, immortal 
man — as the development of the brute — itself the development 
of some monad, or mollusc, which has been smitten into life by 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



471 



the action of electricity upon a gelatinous monad.* This ver- 
tebral portion of a brutal theory, sprung from the skull of a beast, 
long since emptied of its brains, had passed, "like a flood of 
lightning,''' through his disorganized brain ; and he, very natu- 
rally concluded that all human intelligence is the result of an 

* It has recently been asserted, with great confidence, that " There is no connec- 
tion between Oken's discovery of the hind's skull and the development theory. All 
that Oken inferred from the skull is now established truth." 

Our only reply is contained in the following quotations, which express the views 
of three individuals of at least respectable acquirements in several departments of 
Natural Science: Sir David Brewster, Agazziz and Hugh Miller. 

" The facts and reasonings contained in this chapter.'' says Brewster, as quoted and 
endorsed by Agazziz, " will, we doubt not, shake to its very base the bold theory 
of Professor Oken, which had been so generally received abroad, and which is 
beginning to find supporters, even among the solid thinkers of our own country. In 
the Isis of 1818, Professor Lorenz Oken has given the following account of the 
hypothesis, to which we allude. ' In August, 1806,' says he, ' I made a journey over 
the Hartz. I slid down through the wood on the south side, and straight before me, 
at my very feet, lay a most beautiful blanched skull of a hind. I picked it up, 
turned it round, regarded it intensely, the thing was done. It is a vertebral column, 
struck me, like a flood of lightning, 4 to the marrow and bone and, since that time, 
the skull has been regarded as a vertebral column.' This remarkable hypothesis 
was at first received with enthusiasm by the naturalists of Germany, and, among 
others, by Agazziz, who, from grounds not of a geological kind, has more recently 
rejected it. Whatever support this hypothesis might have expected from geology, 
has been struck from beneath it by this remarkable chapter (4th) of Mr. Miller's 
work: and though anatomists may for awhile maintain it, under the influence of so 
high an authority as Professor Owen, we are much mistaken if it ever forms a part 
of the creed of the geologist. Mr. Miller has, indeed, by a most skilful examination 
of the heads of the earliest vertebrata, known to geologists, proved that the hypoth- 
esis derives no support from the structure which they exhibit ; and Agazziz has, even 
upon general principles, rejected it as untenable." (Memoir of Hugh Miller. By 
Louis Agazziz. Page 29-30, incorporating Dr. Brewster's Review in the North 
British.) The chapter on " Footprints," to which Dr. Brewster here refers, is entitled, 
" Cerebral Development of the earlier vertebrata ;" and treats this theory of Oken 
throughout as only one form of the more general "Development Hypothesis." In- 
deed, one can scarcely comprehend how there should be " No connection between a 
theory of Cerebral Development and the Development Theory" 

"According to Professor Oken," proceeds Dr. Brewster, "one of the ablest sup- 
porters of the development theory, ' there are two kinds of generation in the world : 
the creation proper, and the generation that is sequent thereupon ; or the original 
and secondary generation. Consequently no organism has been created of larger 
size than an infusorial point. No organism is, or ever has been created, which is not 
microscopic. Whatever is large has not been created, but developed. Man has not 
been created, but developed.' Hence, it follows that during the great geological 
period, when race after race was destroyed, and new forms of life called into being, 
' Nature had been pregnant with the human race;' and that immortal, intellectual 
man, is but the development of the brute." (Memoir, p. 2*7.) Of this general 
hypothesis, Oken's theory of Cerebral Development is but the specific exemplifica- 
tion. " When we find it urged by at least one eminent assertor of the Development 
Hypothesis — Professor Oken — that light was the main agent in the development of 
nerve — that the nerves ranged in pairs, in turn developed the vertebrae, each vertebra 
being but ' the periphery or envelope of a pair of nerves ;' and that the nerves oi 
those four senses of smell, sight, taste and hearing, which, according to the Professor 
! make up the head,' originated the four cranial veriebrce, which constitute the skull, it 
becomes us to test the central idea (elsewhere called ' the ideal exemplar'), thus con 
verted into a sort of historic myth by the realities of actual history. What, then; 
let us inquire, is the real history of the cerebral development of the vertebrata, as 
recorded in the rocks of the earlier geologic periods V (Footprints, p. 64.) 

And again (on page 94), as tli« result of the whole discussion. " But while we find 



472 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



electric spark passed through an unorganized gelatinous monad. 
It has been well remarked, by an able writer, that the strongest 
argument in favor of this theory is, that any human being should 
ever have been found willing to adopt, much more to assert with 
eagerness, this high relationship to the ourang-outang and ape. 
Congeniality of sympathies may prove community of origin. 

"A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind." 

Hooted from the earth, the development hypothesis took refuge 
amidst the distant nebulae of the further heavens. Driven thence 
by Lord Rosse's telescope, it returned again to the earth ; and 
the last sad record of its tragic fate assures us that, hemmed and 
jammed in, at last, between granite pyramids and huge masses 
of old red sandstone, it was shivered to atoms by a blow from the 
stone hammer of a Caledonian quarrier : and, of all its prodigious 
" Creations" now, no " Vestiges''' remain. 

It will now be perceived how intimate is the relation of these 
general remarks to that particular discussion which is our design, 
hereafter, to prosecute. Christianity does not present herself to- 
day before the scientific world to seek its patronage or propitiate 
its favor. She stands not before us as a discredited witness, to 
bolster up a doubtful reputation ; but as a witness whose evidence 
has been tested, for eighteen centuries, in a thousand ways — that 
has been followed, scrutinized, confronted at every point — sub- 
jected to every torture which power could inflict, or ingenious 
cross-examination could devise yet always vindicated • and, in 
proportion to the severity of that ordeal through which she has 
passed, and the multitude of the tests previously endured, is the 
antecedent probability in her favor. She comes not as a trem- 
bling culprit, on trial for her life ; but as a queen, with the long 
train of her attendant evidences. — prophetical, historical, miracu- 
lous — and the hosts of her conquered and captive foes, to vindi- 
cate her fair fame, establish her title to the crown, and claim 

place in that geological history, in which every character is an organism for the 
' ideal exemplar' of Professor Owen, we find no place in it for the vertebrae-developed 
skull of Professor Ohen. The true genealogy of the head runs in an entirely differ- 
ent line. The nerves of the cerebral senses did not, we find, originate cerebral ver- 
tebrae, seeing that the heads of the first and second geologic periods had their cerebral 
nerves, but not their cerebral vertebrae ; and that what are regarded as cerebral 
vertebrae, appear, for the first time, not in the early fishes, but in the reptiles of the 
coal formation. The line of succession, through the fish, indicated by the continental 
assertor of the development hypothesis, is a line cut off." 

The " Ideal Exemplar," the Archetypal Conception in the Divine Mind, is one 
thing, the self-developing power of nature is totally different. 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



473 



universal dominion. The question is not, then, at the present 
day, when any single science is arrayed against Christianity, 
whether, with our existing knowledge of the facts of this solitary 
science, there be not an equipoise of evidence, or even a prepon- 
derance of argument, against that yiew which harmonizes with 
the Bible history. But, whether there be such an overwhelming 
preponderance in favor of the opposite opinion as will neutralize 
that whole long array of cumulative evidences, external and in- 
ternal, historical, miraculous, prophetical, upon which the cred- 
ibility Of the gospel is established ? 

And here it would be an easy, and, perhaps, in a purely 
polemical discussion, a legitimate procedure, to plead to the juris- 
diction of these sciences — to deny their authority as judges — their 
competency as witnesses — because of their immature age and 
discordant testimony. We might say to these discordant sci- 
ences, "Settle your own disputes;" to these juvenile sciences, 
" Tarry at Jericho till your beards be grown." We might array 
system against system, and theory against theory, which have 
arisen in the geologic world in rapid and brilliant succession, each 
as arrogant, as impious, and as transient as its predecessors ; and 
show that the same changes are in progress now ; that, upon 
many questions of fundamental importance in this discussion, the 
ablest geologists are arrayed against each other. That each new 
decade of the last half-century has produced its new facts, and 
the corresponding modification of existing theories, until the same 
writer is found, not only in opposition to other, but, both as to 
facts and theory, in contradiction with himself; and, having thus 
thrown suspicion upon the science itself, conclude that the objec- 
tions which it offers are to be treated with indifference, as irrele- 
vant or premature. But such is not our method. Of Mosaical 
cosmogonies, and Fairholme geologies, and aspects of the uni- 
verse, with their pre-Adamic Adams, we know little. To what 
particular geologic formation they belong, would be, perhaps, a 
curious question to a serious thinker. Perhaps they might be 
considered as examples and illustrations of that peculiar order 
of " progressive degradation," which Hugh Miller has recently 
described, with that keen wit of his, and keener logic — all whose 
features are twisted awry, as by some strange dislocation, with 
one great central eye, fixed intensely upon some ancient com- 
mentary; another lateral, and turned asquint towards geology* 
We are willing to receive truth, from whatever quarter. Amidst 



474 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION" 



much doubtful and audacious speculation, there are, in geology, 
many ascertained and indubitable facts. Amongst these, we are 
ready to acknowledge a pre-existing condition of our globe, as 
evidenced by successive species of animated beings, whose re- 
mains are found imbedded in successive strata, beneath the sur- 
face of the earth. And yet, even a candid inquirer may surely 
ask, in a discussion such as this, where many disputed questions 
are connected, directly or remotely, with our subject — Amidst this 
conflict of opinions, what shall I believe 1 You seek to take my 
feet from off the rock of ages, and now, while the ground shifts 
perpetually beneath me, as with the quiverings of an earthquake, 
or the heavings of internal fires, where shall I stand? When 
doctors disagree, whom shall I follow ? Shall I follow Buckland, 
in his " Reliquiae Diiuvianse," supported by Cuvier, De Luc, Do- 
lomien, and other distinguished geologists, when he supposes that 
he has discovered indubitable traces of the historic, Mosaical 
deluge ; or Buckland, in his " Bridgewater Treatise/' where he 
seems, at least, to modify his views? Shall I follow Hugh Miller, 
when, in his " Old Red Sandstone," he discovers " that the 
ichthyolites of the lower old red sandstone were of comparatively 
small size, while those of the upper Old Red were of great bulk ;" 
that the "system began with an age of dwarfs, and ended with 
an age of giants ?" Or shall I follow him in his " Foot-Prints," 
where, at the very base of the system, he " discovers one of the 
most colossal of its giants ;" and instead of an ascending order 
of progressive development, asserts a descending order of progres- 
sive degradation? Shall I follow the " Catastrophists," or the 
" Uniformitarians," — those who see, everywhere, the evidence of 
terrible convulsions, that shook and rent the earth, and ages of 
tempests that heaved the ancient ocean ; or those who deny all 
great catastrophes, and assert the absolute uniformity of the 
course of nature, through all geological cycles? In regard to the 
change of climate, apparent on our glooe, shall I adopt the as- 
tronomic, or geologic theory? Concerning the origin of our vast 
mountain ranges, shall I adopt the ordinary theory of scientific 
geologists, of a sudden upheaval by some great paroxysm of 
nature? Or that asserted by Mr. Lyell, of slow and gradual 
elevation, through centuries of comparative repose? In regard 
to the central heat of the earth, now no longer disputed, or dis- 
putable, shall 1 adopt the theory of La Place and Herschell, and 
all the bolder theorists, concerning a great ocean of internal fire, 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



475 



not many miles below the surface, and deepening ;.n intensity as 
you approach the centre? Or the chemical theoiy of LyelL and 
Sir Humphrey Davy, which attributes all to the combination and 
decomposition of various elements, beneath the influence of some 
great subterranean current of electricity, the earth itself being as 
one vast voltaic pile? Shall I agree with those who consider 
geology and astronomy as parts of one great comprehensive 
science, each the necessary complement of the other, and both 
under the guidance of wide-extending cosmical laws, which 
operate, if not similarly, at least analogously, throughout the 
visible universe? Or shall I, with Mr. Lyell, divorce these cog- 
nate sciences, and build up geology upon the basis of its own 
peculiar and independent phenomena? Or, lastly, shall I follow 
Mr. Lyell, when he asserts the absolute uniformity of the course 
of nature ; — or when he denies this uniformity, and acknowl- 
edges, in the creation of man, the direct interposition of an ex 
traordinary power, superior to all the agencies either before or 
since existing in nature, and really divine? Or, finally, shall I 
follow him into that logical catastrophe into which he plunges, 
through horror of the physical; when, startled by the absurdity 
of a uniformity which is not uniform, he seeks to relieve the 
difficulty by asserting, with laudable impartiality, an extraor- 
dinary agency which is not extraordinary ; and then with true 
grammatical precision, deducing from this double negative, a 
single affirmative — in attempting to reconcile the two annihilates 
both? 

But however great the diversity of sentiment upon these and 
other questions bearing directly and indirectly upon the Christian 
argument, on one point, at least, all men are agreed : there 
is not a geological theory extant which would not be overthrown, 
and the whole science revolutionized, by the discovery of a single 
new and extraordinary fact. 

This is not the language of a foe, but of its x wisest, most judi- 
cious, and most competent defenders. Witness the last utterance 
from the geologic oracle (Miller's "Foot-Prints," page 313): "It 
(geology) furnishes us with no clue by which to unravel the un- 
approachable mysteries of creation ; these mysteries belong to 
the wondrous Creator, and to him only. We attempt to theorize 
upon them, and to reduce them to law, and all nature rises up 
against us in our presumptuous rebellion. A stray splinter of 
cone-bearing wood — a fish's skull or tooth — the vertebra of a rep- 



476 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



tile — the humerus of a bird — the jaw of a quadruped — all — any 
of these things, weak and insignificant as they may seem, be- 
come in such a quarrel, too strong for us and our theory — the 
puny fragment in the grasp of truth forms as irresistible a weapon 
as the dry bone did in that of Samson of old ; and our slaugh- 
tered sophisms lie, piled up, 'heaps upon heaps,' before it." Is 
it possible, then, that such a theory, which would thus be anni- 
hilated by a single fact, within the limits of its own appropriate 
domain — which would be brained by the humerus of a sparrow, 
or the tooth of a fish — shall be allowed to exercise so despotic a 
control beyond it as to annihilate the whole array of evidence in 
favor of the Bible, within us and without — to erase the mighty 
footsteps of the gospel, as she has gone abroad over the world, 
to sanctify and to bless — to hush the voice of conscience — to 
stifle the sense of guilt — to quench the hopes of immortality? 
Should such a theory seek to contradict our consciousness — to 
reverse the principles of morals — deny the great facts of civil and 
sacred history, and overthrow the foundations of our faith — with- 
out the slightest hesitation, we would reject the theory, and hold 
to the fact ; clasp the Bible to our hearts, and reject geology ! 
Such would be our conclusion, on the broadest principles of the 
inductive philosophy — which ever prefers the well-known, familiar, 
indubitable fact, whether of outward observation or inward con- 
sciousness, and the direct, immediate, intuitive convictions of the 
mind, before all the plausibilities of ingenious hypothesis, based 
upon remote or doubtful or complicated facts, and subtle ratioci- 
nations. But we do not believe that the ascertained facts or re- 
ceived principles of geology do thus contradict the Bible ; on the 
contrary, we are convinced that they have done important service 
to the cause of theology, both natural and revealed ; and furnished 
to each some of its most conclusive arguments and sublimest 
illustrations. 

The first coincidence which we shall notice between the teach- 
ings of geology and the revelations of the Bible, is upon a vital 
and fundamental question in the historical Evidences of Chris- 
tianity — " The Possibility and Credibility of Miracles" Geol- 
ogy HAS UTTERLY ANNIHILATED Hume's CELEBRATED ARGU- 
MENT AGAINST THE MIRACLES OF THE BlBLE. 

The Bible asserts the occasional interposition of divine and 
supernatural power for moral purposes in the ordinary course of 
physical events. This, infidelity, in al. its forms, denies and de 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



477 



rides. The atheist denies the existence of such a power, and as- 
serts an infinite series of successive beings. The pantheist asserts 
a progressive development from the lowest gelatinous monad to the 
highest animated existence, through the spontaneous agency of 
natural causes. The deist acknowledges the existence of this 
power, but denies his immediate agency in the universe, which he 
has created. 

To ail these geology replies by pointing to the same great series 
of wonderful discoveries. To the atheist, she says — " I have fol- 
lowed up your 'Eternal Series' for six thousand years, and there 
it abruptly terminates." To the pantheist, she says, "I have fol- 
lowed up your 'Ascending Series of Progressive Development,' 
and find it contradicted by all the facts. I find a giant, where 
you had asserted a dwarf; and in my lowest strata, examples of 
a high organization." She points to the myriad miracles re- 
corded indelibly upon the "everlasting rocks," and says to the deist: 
" These are the ' foot- prints' of the Creator, whose existence you 
admit, and whose direct agency you deny. Each new formation, 
and each animated species, whose remains are perpetuated there, 
is cumulative evidence of the miracle which brought it into being." 
To all she says, in the language of her latest, and one of her most 
gifted advocates: "What say you to the relics that stand out, in 
such bold relief, from the rocks beside us. in their character, as 
the results of miracle ? The perished tribes and races which 
they represent, all began to exist. There is no truth which sci- 
ence can more conclusively demonstrate than that they all had a, 
beginning. The infidel, who, in this late age of the world, would 
attempt falling back upon the fiction of 'An Infinite Series,' would 
be laughed to scorn. They all began to be. But how? No 
true geologist holds to the ' Development Hypothesis.' It is re- 
signed to sciolists and smatterers ; and there is but one other 
alternative. They began to be through the miracle of crea- 
tion. Through the evidence furnished by these rocks, we are 
shut down to the belief in mil acle. Hume is at length answered by 
the severe truths of the stony science." (" Foot-Prints" by Hugh 
Miller, p. 301, 302.) Such is the language of one who is rapidly 
assuming the first position amongst contemporary geologists ; and 
for whom Brewster, and Buckland, and Lyell, and Murchison, 
and Agazziz, have all expressed the profoundest admiration. 
Such is, without exception, the language of scientific geologists in 
our day. 



478 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION" 



This theory of Hume was revived during the yea' 1815 in the 
Edinburgh Review, the same journal which had patronized the 
dreams of Bailly, long after the wit of Voltaire and the science 
of D'AIembert had hooted them from France, and had deduced 
such prodigious conclusions from the zodiacs of Denderah and 
Ezneh. But scarce three years had passed away before the prog- 
ress of geological science forced that infallible dictator in litera- 
ture and science openly to retract and refute its own superficial 
infidelity. Our limits will authorize a brief extract only from the 
Edinburgh Review (No. 104). "The recent discoveries in geol- 
ogy lead irresistibly to another observation. It is one of still 
greater importance ; for it seems to us to be fatal to the the- 
ory (Hume's) which we have presumed to call a misconception 
of the uniformity of causation, as signifying an unalterable se- 
quence of causes and effects. Those who have read neither 
Cuvier nor Lyell, are yet aware that the human race did not 
exist from all eternity. Certain strata have been identified with 
the period of man's first appearance. We cannot do better than 
quote from Dr. Pritchard's excellent book (Natural History of 
Man), his comment, and application of this fact. 'Mankind had 
a beginning; since we can look back to the period when the sur- 
face on which they live began to exist. We have only to go back 
in imagination to that age to represent to ourselves that, at a 
eertain time, there existed nothing on this globe but unformed 
elements; and that, in the next period, there had begun to move, 
and breathe in a particular spot, a human creature ; and we shall 
already have admitted, perhaps, the most astonishing miracle 
recorded in the whole compass of the sacred writings.' No 
greater changes," continues the reviewer, " can be well imagined, 
in the ordinary sequence of cause and effect, such as constituted 
the laws of nature as they had been previously established, than 
took place on the day when man was, for the first time, seen 
amongst the creatures of the earth." 

Even Mr. Lyell, whose fundamental tenet is, "The absolute 
uniformity of the course of nature, through all geologic epochs," 
— the continued agency of the same causes, " the same both in 
kind and degree" in " the organic and inorganic world." — recoils 
from the legitimate results of his own favorite principle, when he 
comes to man ; — and acknowledges here, " a real departure from 
the antecedent course of physical events ;" " an anomalous devia- 
tion from the previously established order of things ;" " a peculiar 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



479 



and unprecedented agency, long after other parts of the animate 
and inanimate world existed ; which affords ground for concluding 

that THE EXPERIENCE, DURING THOUSANDS OF AGES, OF ALL 
THE EVENTS WHICH MAY HAPPEN ON THIS GLOBE, WOuld not 

enable a philosopher to speculate, with confidence, concerning 
future contingencies." This "anomalous deviation from the es- 
tablished order of things," he attributes, on the next page, to a 
" moral source" — 11 new relations between the material and moral 
worlds'' 1 — " circumstances not of a physical, but a moral nature" 
(See " Principles of Geology" p. 257-260.) 

Here, then, we have the triumph of Christianity — complete — 
decisive — final — irreversible ; and on the field selected by her ad- 
versaries. The whole vast array of Christian Evidences, histori- 
cal, prophetical, miraculous, remains untouched ; with nothing to 
resist their combined and overwhelming power. And we might 
leave the subject here. The centre is broken ; the rest is an 
affair of the wings; the skirmishing of outposts, when the citadel 
has been carried ; the pattering of small arms, when the strong 
battery has been silenced, and the heavy artillery spiked. 

And it might serve perhaps to quiet the anxious fears of timid 
Christians, trembling for their faith, to know that all this has 
been conclusively accomplished through the discoveries of ge- 
ology. 

Nor ought we to omit in this rapid sketch all notice of another 
stronghold of infidelity, where she took refuge long amidst the 
mists and obscurity of distant ages ; and from which she has been 
irrecoverably driven by the discoveries of geology. I allude to 
the supposed inaccuracy of the Bible in regard to — 

2d. The recent origin of man. All ancient history, except the 
Bible, terminates, as you trace it upwards, in an age of fabulous 
mythology, where all looms large in the distance, all is exaggera- 
tion, and all is prodigy. Years are exaggerated into centuries ; 
centuries into thousands of years, or incalculable ages ; warrior 
chieftains expand into heroes, heroes into demi-gods, and demi- 
gods, at last, are converted into gods. Thus, excited imagination 
and national vanity have combined, in all ancient chronicles, to 
multiply the numbers and extend the duration of successive dy- 
nasties, and give to the founders of various nations an indefinite 
antiquity, which is lost in the dimness of the past, and allies them 
in lineage, and in the era of their existence, with the immortal 
gods themselves. The Bible alone, with the calm sobriety and 



480 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



dignity of truth, comes forward with its simple narrative of men 
and of events, without apology and without exaggeration, giving 
minutely names and dates, the period of the birth and death of 
successive individuals; and as the result of the most accurate 
examination of her records, it appears that the existence of man 
upon the earth cannot extend much beyond a period of six thou- 
sand years. At this all infidelity stands aghast, and contemptu- 
ously exclaims, "The Bible is contradicted by all human records, 
by astronomical calculations, by zodiacs, still remaining ; by that 
strong conviction of the human bosom, which leads all men, 
spontaneously, to attribute an indefinitely long duration to the pres- 
ent condition of the world." We have already shown how math- 
ematical and astronomical science had combined to refute one 
part of this objection ; and how an improved knowledge of hiero- 
glyphics had swept away another. But to all of them geology 
has offered a direct and decisive contradiction, and a confirmation 
as decisive of the sacred record. 

"I need not dwell," says Mr. Lyell, " on the proofs of the low 
antiquity of our species ; for it is not controverted by any experi- 
enced geologist ; indeed the real difficulty consists in tracing back 
the signs of man's existence upon earth — to that comparatively 
recent period, when species now his contemporaries began greatly 
to predominate." "From the concurrent testimony of history 
and tradition we learn that portions of Europe, now the most 
fertile, and most completely subjected to the dominion of man, 
were less than three thousand years ago, covered with forests, 
and the abode of wild beasts. The archives of nature are in 
perfect accordance with historical records." [Principles of Geol- 
ogy, p. 249, 250.) Cuvier, having reached the same conclusion by 
a minute and careful examination of a vast variety of geological 
facts enumerated in his " Essays on the Theory of the Earth," 
remarks: "This result is one of the best established, and least 
attended to, in rational zoology ; and it is so much the more val- 
uable, as it connects natural and civil history together in one un- 
interrupted series." Thus fades into dim oblivion — never to reap- 
pear — this once celebrated objection of a philosophic infidelity. 

It is a remarkable fact, that wherever the assaults of infidelity 
have been most confident and most contemptuous, with the 
loudest flourish of trumpets, and the boldest tones of defiance, 
there the progress of scientific inquiry has most completely un- 
masked her pretensions, and confirmed the credibility of the sacred 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



481 



Scriptures. Especially is this true in regard to that permanent 
topic of infidel derision, 

"the final conflagration." 

Whatever may be our theory of the earth's "Internal Heat,' 
whether we believe in a great ocean of central fire, increasing, as 
we descend, to an intensity of heat far surpassing that of melted 
iron, with Sir W. Herschell, and all the bolder theorists ; or at- 
tribute all the phenomena, with Lyell and Sir Humphrey Davy, 
to the influence of chemical agencies — to the combination and 
decomposition of various elements, beneath the constant play of 
subterranean currents of electricity, the earth being as one vast 
voltaic pile ; whether we consider geology and astronomy as 
complemental parts of one great, comprehensive science, founded 
upon wide cosmical relations; and observe the numerous analo- 
gies between our own sun, and planet, and the other central suns 
and planetary worlds around us, with the modern followers of 
La Place and Herschell ; or with Mr. Lyell, divorce these cognate 
sciences, and eschewing these wider analogies, build up geology 
upon the basis of its own independent and separate phenomena; 
on any theory, and with any process of investigation, the facts 
remain the same ; and the conclusion, not the result of doubtful 
disputation, but of scientific, and almost irresistible deduction, is 
openly proclaimed by every competent authority, and Mr. Lyell 
with the rest: that the termination of our present system by a 
terrific conflagration, is an extremely probable, according to Mr. 
Lyell, an inevitable catastrophe. The facts on which this 
conclusion has been based, are so numerous, so various in their 
character, and derived from quarters so different and remote, that 
it would be impossible to enumerate them all within the limits 
assigned to this whole discussion. They are derived from mines, 
from artesian wells ; from earthquakes and volcanoes ; from hot 
springs, from the elevation of mountain ranges, the overflow of 
igneous rocks, covering vast regions of the earth ; and taking a 
wider range, look to the condition of other worlds, to the moon, 
the sun, the planetary globes, the comets, and the fixed stars. 

We must confine ourselves to the statement of results generally 
admitted. 

" The observation made by Arago in 1821 that the deepest 
artesian wells are the warmest, threw great light." says Humboldt, 

31 



482 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



" on the origin of Thermal springs ; and on the establishment of 
the laiv, that terrestrial heat increases with increasing depth." 
A vast variety of experiments have since been made with the 
greatest precision by distinguished philosophers in the mines of 
various regions of the globe — in France, England, Switzerland, 
Peru, Saxony, and Mexico, and with the same general result. 
The average ratio of increase as you descend from the surface to 
the centre, is (over all measured distances) about 1° Fahrenheit 
to 44 or 54 feet. "If this increase can be reduced to arithmetical 
relations, it will follow, that a stratum of granite would be in a 
state of fusion at a depth of nearly twenty-one geographical miles, 
or between four and five times the elevation of the Himalaya 
Mountains, and the water from the hot springs between Porto 
Cabello and Nueva Valencia, at 205*5° of temperature, would 
issue from a source 7140 feet, or above two miles in depth." 
(Cos. vol. i. 174-221. See Lyell, v. ii. 433, 434.) This calcula- 
tion proceeds on the supposition of a progressive increase of heat 
in the unobserved depths of the earth, a theory adopted by the 
great majority of modern philosophers. 

But this internal heat, from whatever source derived, 
reaches to vast and unfathomable depths, and is of universal ex- 
tent, far beneath the outer surface of our globe. To this, how- 
ever generated, are attributed all the great changes in the 
condition of the earth ; those huge mountain ranges, the Alps, 
the Appenines, the Pyrenees, the Himalaya, the Ural, the Alle- 
ghany, and the Andes ; those Thermal springs of unvarying 
temperature, which burst from the ground, in every climate, and on 
every continent ; those igneous rocks, once in a state of manifest 
fusion, which underlie all our more superficial strata, and burst 
upward from the depths below, deluging whole regions many 
hundred thousand square miles in extent, till the earth is covered 
"many hundred feet in depth" beneath the fiery inundation, and 
its whole "surface roughened, and mottled by these Plutonic 
masses, as thickly as the skin of the leopard by its spots." 
(Foot-Prints, p. 312.) 

The magnificent extent iad terrific energy of this internal 
power — if not infinite — at any rate absolutely immeasurable and 
irresistible — is manifested in those mountain ranges of 4000 miles 
in extent (as the Andes), where a solitary giant, Cotopaxi, lifts 
his head 19,000 feet above the level of the ocean ; the flames from 
his crater rising full half a mile above his summit, and the 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



483 



scoria, and huge rocks thrown out by his explosions, and scattered 
over many leagues around, "would form, were they heaped 
together, a colossal mountain." (Humholdtf s Researches, 

i. 115-125.) It will assist us to form some approximate concep- 
tion of the illimitable energy employed in these stupendous up- 
heavals ; to contemplate a slight elevation over a comparatively 
limited area, which has been reduced by Mr. Lyell within the 
compass of human calculation. In the year 1822, an extent of 
country in Chili equal, perhaps, to one hundred thousand square 
miles, was elevated by a single earthquake three feet (uot 1 ( .*,000) 
on an average, and Mr. Lyell gives us in the following words the 
result of his calculations : "The whole thickness of rock between 
the subterranean foci of volcanic action and the surface of Chili 
may be many miles or leagues deep. Say that the thick- 
ness was only two miles, even then the mass which changed 
place and rose three feet, being 200,000 cubic miles in volume, 
must have exceeded in weight 363 million pyramids." (Vol. 

ii. 305, 306.) He adds immediately, " It would require seventeen 
centuries and a half before the river Ganges could bear down from 
the continent into the sea, a mass equal to that gained by the 
Chilian earthquake." A pyramid presents some definite object to 
our conception. Three hundred and sixty-three millions are but 
one million daily for a year. When, however, we begin to calcu- 
late the mass thrown out in only two of those overflows of igne- 
ous traps — those, namely, in Hindostan and Southern Africa, 
covering an area, double in extent, and on an average, 200 feet 
in thickness; — our pyramids are multiplied by 145,200,000,000 — 
and arithmetical numbers become the vague symbols of a power 
which transcends imagination. But when we attempt to calculate 
the amount of force necessary to heave up those mountain masses, 
varying from 3000 to 25,000 feet in height, and stretching over sev- 
eral thousand miles in extent ; when we seek to pile Vesuvius upon 
Etna, and Etna upon Atlas, and Atlas upon Cotopaxi, and this 
upon Chimborazo, and Chimborazo on the loftiest of the Hima- 
laya, we are lost amidst magnitudes which arithmetic indeed 
might calculate, and language might ir/iperfectly express, but the 
human mind is totally unable to comprehend. 

What shall we say of those earthquakes which not merely 
shake the largest mountains to their base, and engulf whole cities 
with their myriad inhabitants, but rock the solid globe from conti- 
nent to continent, and heave the deep ocean from its bed ; as that 



484 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



of Lisbon in 1T55, which was felt from Lapland U Martinique in 
the West Indies, and from Greenland across the continent to. Af- 
rica ; while the sea rose from fifteen to sixty feet on different 
coasts, and the land rose and fell in rapid undulations, as if tossed 
by the billows of an agitated ocean. (Lyell, vol. ii. p. 266-268.) 
In the second volume of the "Principles," commencing with 
the 254th page, we have the record of a terrific eruption of lava 
from Skaptar Jokul, one of the volcanoes of Iceland. We have 
not room for the startling details, and can give only the general 
results. The lava rushed from the volcano in two different 
streams, and in opposite directions, varying in width from one mile 
to fifteen, and in depth from 100 feet to 600, as it chanced to flow 
between the high rocky banks of the Skaptar river, or meeting 
with obstacles in its course, expanded over wide alluvial plains, 
and formed broad burning lakes, fifteen miles in breadth, and 100 
feet in depth. The length of the stream was in one direction 
forty miles, in the other fifty. It has been calculated that this 
mass of lava would have covered an area of 1800 square miles 
to the depth of 150 feet, or 6000 square miles to a depth of near 
forty feet, producing, of course, a corresponding vacancy beneath 
the surface. Two thousand of these eruptions occur, as Mr. L. 
supposes, during each century; and in view of these and other 
equally important facts, he announces the deliberate conviction, 
that " vacuities must also arise from the subtraction of the matter 
poured out by volcanoes, and from the contraction of argillaceous 
masses by subterranean heat ; and the foundations having been 
thus weakened, the earth's crust shaken and rent by re- 
iterated CONVULSIONS, MUST, IN THE COURSE OF TIME, FALL 

in." (P. 478.) 

Indeed, if that theory be true which was propounded by Sir 
Humphrey Davy, and adopted by Mr. Lyell, that the earth is a 
great "voltaic pile," carrying on a perpetual process of combina- 
tion and decomposition, and thus feeding perpetually its own in- 
ward fires ; and if, as he asserts, the water of the sea resolved into 
its component elements, oxygen and hydrogen (p. 454-456), and 
even the atmospheric air (p. 460) rushing in upon these volcanic 
foci, be the principal sources of their tremendous energy, then, 
when that great predicted day of conflagration shall arrive, and 
air, and earth, and sea shall be on fire, the sublime and terrible 
catastrophe will be but the result of laws and agencies intensified 
and variously combined, which are now in operation all around 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



485 



us : " the earth's crust shattered and rent by reiterated concus- 
sions, falling in ;'' the atmospheric air, and the waters of the agi- 
tated ocean, rushing into the yawning chasm, and feeding the 
fury of the flames, which they are unable to extinguish ; and well 
may Mr. Lyell exclaim (vol. ii. 451), quoting the words, and shar- 
ing the wonder of Pliny, " It is the greatest of all miracles, that 
a single day should pass without an universal conflagra- 
tion."* 

Such are the conclusions which we are forced to draw, when 
we confine our attention to phenomena, visible upon, and be- 
neath the surface of our globe. But there is, in our day, a bolder 
and more comprehensive philosophy ; which considers geology 
and astronomy as branches of one great science ; and our earth, 
not as an isolated world, but as the member of a vast family of 
worlds, bound together by one common relationship, and under 
the control, at every stage of their onward development, of great 
cosmical laws ; and when we come thus to connect the phenomena 
of this, our globe, with the mysterious changes going on, even 
now, in the universe above us, and the evidence of past revolu- 
tions which the telescope affords, our astonishment, which we 
had shared before, with Pliny, is converted into a loftier and 
holier emotion ; of awed sublimity and devout and reverential 
adoration. In the sun, in the moon, in the planets, in the comets, 
and in the distant stars, are evidences, manifold and more clear, 
in proportion as we can better examine them, of mysterious and 
portentous changes, springing in all human probability (as their 
ordinary phenomena indisputably do) from the same inscrutable 
forces which have produced similar revolutions on our earth. 
The sublimest portion of our modern astronomy is that which is 
devoted to. the study and elucidation of these extraordinary 
phenomena. Here too, it may be said, as was said before, that 
whatever may be the theory, the facts and the legitimate conclu- 
sion, are the same. 

* The words of Mr. Lyell are so remarkable, and so distinctly to our purpose 
that the reader will be pleased to find them in the following quotation. {Principles 
of Geology, vol. ii. p. 451.) " \\ hen we consider the combustible nature of the ele- 
ments of the earth, so far as they are known to us ; the facility with which their com- 
pounds may be decomposed and enter into new combinations; the quantity of heat 
which they evolve during these processes: when we recollect the expansive power 
of steam, and that water itself is composed of two gases which, by their union, 
produce intense heat; when we call to mind the number of explosive and detonating 
compounds, which have been already discovered ; we may be allowed to share the 
astonishment of Pliny, that a single day should pass without a general conflagration : 
' Excedit profecto, omnia miracula, ullum diem fuisse, quo non cuncta conflagrarent.' 
— Hist. Mundi, Lib. ii. c. 107." 



486 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



The moon, which, from its near vicinity, is best known of all 
the heavenly bodies, has been daguerreotyped ; and the relation 
of its various regions, perhaps, more distinctly apprehended than 
that of the several portions of our own larger world. It is — on 
the only side exposed to human observation — an extinct volcano ; 
with its giant mountains, its abrupt precipices, its deep and cav- 
ernous abysses ; a world, in preparation, probably, to be inhabited. 
(" Outlines," p. 151.) 

In those dark spots upon the disk of our sun, whose diameter 
is sometimes equal to six diameters of the earth, and whose 
enormous extent must be measured in square miles, by millions, 
astronomers believe that we see the dark body of the sun laid 
bare through openings in the bright clouds that environ and 
illuminate it ; and that this agitation in its luminous strata, is 
occasioned by some mysterious energy, analogous at least, if not 
similar, to that whose agency has been observed in the moon and 
upon the earth. " HerschelVs Outlines" p. 225-30. " Plane- 
tary System," 320-37. "NichoVs Solar System," p. 120-32. 

Prodigious revolutions in the luminous atmospheres of the 
sun are no longer matter of visionary speculation, but, says one 
of our most eminent contemporary astronomers, " an absolute 
fact." 

The present century has witnessed the successive discoveries 
of several extraordinary bodies, and under circumstances as ex- 
traordinary as the bodies thus discovered. As in the case of the 
planet Neptune, so in that of the " Asteroids." The search and 
the discovery were preceded and directed by the hypothetical as- 
sumption, based upon broad and bold analogies. As in the case 
of Neptune, the distance had been previously calculated, the 
quarter of the heavens pointed out, the telescope directed to the 
spot — the star discovered. That there is some law, in regard 
to the inter-planetary distances, as in every other department of 
creation, could hardly be doubted by any devout or any philo- 
sophic mind. Now it was long since discovered that this law was 
apparently suspended, and the harmony of the universe inter- 
rupted in the amazing interval between the orbits of Mars and 
Jupiter. More than two hundred years ago, with that strong 
faith in the analogies of nature which characterizes all real 
genius, and when wisely directed, leads to all philosophical dis- 
covery, Old Kepler had predicted the future discovery of a planet, 
in this apparently unoccupied space. Long derided as the daring 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



487 



speculation of a great, but visionary mind, the discovery of 
Uranus, by re-establishing the interrupted harmony, directed the 
minds of astronomers to the old prediction of Kepler, and to the 
search after the undiscovered world. Three years had scarcely 
passed after the discovery of Uranus, when in 1784, the Baron 
De Zach computed the distance and the period of the now gen- 
erally suspected planet. In 1800, a congress of astronomers met, 
and gravely discussed, and ultimately adopted the apparently 
chimerical enterprise of discovering a world, whose existence was 
announced by faith alone in the harmonies of nature. On the 
first day of January, 1801, the telescope, directed to the appointed 
spot, discovered the star, and justified the calculation, both as to 
distance, and actual period. But as to magnitude. Ceres — the 
newly-discovered star — was 163 miles, at most 1000, in diameter. 
Soon, another was discovered. Then came the boldest hypoth- 
esis ; and based upon it, the boldest prediction recorded in the 
annals of human science. Olbers suggested the opinion, that 
these diminutive asteroids were fragments of a larger world, long 
since exploded ; and predicted the discovery of many other frag- 
ments, in a particular portion of the heavens — at the point of 
mutual intersection of their orbits. The very suggestion of such 
an hypothesis, and its wide acceptance by philosophers, would be 
sufficient for our argument. It involves a fact and a supposition. 
The fact is the existence of actual forces in our earth, analogous 
to those required by the hypothesis, in the exploded planet. 
The supposition relates to the existence of similar forces in other 
worlds. Without the reality here, the supposition there would 
Bp incredibly absurd. But the test of an hypothesis is its 
conformity to the facts. Telescope after telescope was directed 
to the spot which the hypothesis indicated. Asteroid after 
asteroid twinkled visibly in the vault of heaven, until fourteen, 
with constantly recurring new additions, were discovered. " The 
theory of Olbers," writes Prof. Mitchell, in 1848 {two years after 
the discovery of Iris), " receives new accessions of strength from 
the discovery of every new asteroid." Six have been added 
since. " The same theory," says Prof. Loomis, " would lead us 
to anticipate the discovery of numerous other fragments and 
adds in a P. S., "Since the preceding was in type, it has been 
announced that a new asteroid was discovered, May 11th, at 
the Naples Observatory." "Whatever may be thought of such a 
speculation as a physical hypothesis" writes Sir J. Herschell, in 



488 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



1849, " this conclusion has been verified to a considerable extent, 
as a matter of fact, by subsequent discovery — the result of 
careful and minute examination undertaken with that express 
object."* As to the supposed impossibility, or incredibility of 
such an event, the following language of Prof. Loomis of New 
York, may be considered as expressing the general views of the 
scientific world. "No doubt, then," speaking of the division of 
Biela's comet into two distinct parts, " no doubt, then, Biela has 
been separated into two parts. When, and how ? Was it caused 
by an explosion arising from some internal force? Forces of this 
kind ice see in operation in our oxen globe, ejecting liquid 
mountains from the bowels of the earth. The surface of our 
moon bears marks of similar agency. The sun appears agitated 
by powerful forces, perhaps the expansion of gaseous substances ; 
and it has been conjectured that a planet was once split into 
numerous fragments. If w T e knew that Biela's comet- was a solid 

body, WE MIGHT EASILY SUPPOSE IT TO HAVE BEEN DIVIDED 
BY SOME FORCE SIMILAR TO VOLCANIC AGENCY." " History of 

Astronomy" p. 105-6. t 

* See " Edinburgh Encyclopedia." An article by Sir David Brewster, " As- 
tronomy," chap. i. sec. x. "Plan, and Stellar Worlds," Lecture 7th. "Outlines," 
p. 297 — Prof. Alexander, " Asteroids and Comets." Astron. Journal, No. 28. Dr. 
B. A. Gould, in Silliman's Journal, 2d Series, vol. vi. p. 2S-36. 

f In regard to the doubts which have been recently expressed, respecting the 
common origin of the asteroids — doubts founded on the want of coincidence between 
the nodes of Iris and Hygeia, and those of the other asteroids — we are permitted 
to insert the following extract from a letter, written to a common friend, by a gentle- 
man of the greatest eminence, as a mathematician and a physical philosopher, in 
one of our eastern Institutions. 

"August 1st, 1851. 

" My Dear Sir, 

" 1 have long since learned to attach to scientific theories only the value of means 
to attain ends — ideas to suggest, and guide research, the scaffolding to erect a build- 
ing, rather than the building itself. And therefore do I hold my faith in them, free 
to vary, ad infinitum. 

" Yet it must be admitted that the coincidences, or analogies, amongst the as- 
teroids establish a very great probability of their common origin. 

"They all (Irene and Hygeia included) approximate to a common point of inter- 
section in orbits ; and what is strange, this region of condensation is also intersected 
by the orbit of Halley's comet ! The orbit of Hygeia does not vary so much from 
•the near position of the orbits of the asteroids {especially at their point of nearest 
approach) as some of them vary from each other, or as in m\ opinion, to require the 
abandonment of the hypothesis of Oibers." 

Indeed, the objection, in its greatest force, seems to involve its own refutation; 
for the thing objected against, as fatal to the theory, : s in reality, essential to its 
truth; viz. " If these bodies are fragments of a larger planet, this explosion must 
have taken place at a very remote epoch." (" Mist. AstrJ' p. 69.) 

Surely, if such an occurrence did take place, it was at a period hidefnitely remote ; 
at an early stage of its development as a planet. But what would be thought of 
an objection against any terrestrial revolution (say, the close of the Silurian era), 
" that such a result could not have taken place withix a million of years." " A 
million of years" may bewilder unthinking minds; but, unless all our astronomy 



AXD NATURAL SCIENCE. 



489 



Here then we have two fragments of a cometary world, a 
comet divided into '-'two distinct and separate comets/' and "the 
two parts bound together, by some inscrutable bond, continuing 
their swift journey through space" in orbits precisely parallel, and 
with constant changes in their luminous condition. Similar 
changes — only on a scale more magnificent, and with far greater 
rapidity — have been witnessed in Haliey's comet, which is seen to 
undergo "singular and capricious changes, with great rapidity;" 
pouring forth vast volumes of flame suddenly, beneath the gaze 
of the telescope, of which Struve says, recording such a phenom- 
enon — " The flame was wonderful. It resembled a ray of 
fire shot out from the nucleus, as from some engine of artil- 
lery /" One hundred and thirty years before the birth of Christ, 
a comet (the same perhaps) was seen to blaze up in the sky, 
and surpass the sun in brightness. ("PI- and Stel. 
Worlds" p. 227.) We might hesitate to believe these extraor- 
dinary accounts of changes in the celestial worlds — the birth of a 
new star of extraordinary brilliancy, recorded by the Greek 
astronomer, Hipparchus, and others still more wonderful in the 
Chinese records, had not modern observation swept completely, 
and conclusively away, the fabled " immutability of the starry 
spheres ;" and proven that all above, around, beneath, to the re- 
motest parts of the visible creation, is motion — progress — inces- 
sant change; new suns bursting with sudden and startling bril- 
liancy upon our skies ; suns, long observed, fading utterly away, 
and other suns, passing (as Sirius, for instance, from the "Red 
Dog star," of ancient times, to the beautiful white orb of our day) 
through astonishing revolutions, in the quantity and the color of 
their light. When the astronomer beholds these astounding 
changes : — comets dividing into separate fragments, and kindling 
into vivid conflagration beneath the very gaze of his telescope ; — 
one star robbed, in the period of a few passing weeks, of half its 
former radiance; — another growing gradually into five-fold bright- 
ness ; — another bursting instantaneously forth with surpassing 
lustre, and shining on for months with declining light, until it 

and geology be the idlest illusions (and if so, the whole argument is abandoned), 
millions, whether applied to our estimates of distance, in time or space, are not 
very overpowering numbers to the modern astronomer, or geologist. One 'oeriod of 
our sun's revolution around its central sun, has been estimated at eighteen hundred 
million of years (Jfaedler). One million would bear to this, the relation of a single 
year, to the whole Christian era ! And this single revolution of our sun, what pro- 
portion does it bear to eternity ? The eternity past ; or the eternity to come ? And 
who shall say, that he has not already marie one, or many such revolutions ? 



490 HARMONY OF REVELATION AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



gradually fades away, having passed through all the " changes 
of a dying conflagration/ 5 he is forced to exclaim, " What mean 
these mighty revolutions, where all had appeared so permanent 
and stable ?" He has proposed his theory, and we believe it to be 
extremely probable. But whatever be the theory, the fact remains 
indisputable. 

" Mutability" is written on all created things, God only is 
the eternal and unchanging One ! And the voice which 
comes to us from those worlds of light, as they kindle and fade 
away, is but the deep chorus to the majestic and solemn melody 
of that old Hebrew poet, as he sang of old, " Thou, Lord, in the 
beginning, hast laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heav- 
ens are the works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou 
remainest ; and they shall all wax old as doth a garment, and 
as a vesture shalt thou fold them up ; and they shall be changed; 
but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." (See espe- 
cially, "Humboldt's Cosmos," vol. iii. p. 151-182. On "New 
Stars.") 



n. 



THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. 

Let us now approach the first chapter of Genesis, against which 
so many and such contradictory objections have been urged ; 
and here, if I mistake not, we shall find, " instead of a conflict," 
the same surprising, and "corroborative harmony," between the 
discoveries of modern science and the revelations of the Bible, 
which we have already met in the preceding part of this discus- 
sion. 

Verse 1. — The first verse is now universally admitted to con- 
tain the simple annunciation of God as the creator of the 
universe. The second describes the condition of the earth 
when God began to prepare it immediately for the abode of man. 
The third records the first of those successive acts of Almighty 
Power by which this chaotic mass was reduced to order, and made 
a fit habitation for its destined inhabitants. 

That the initial act recorded in the third verse is subsequent to 
that chaotic condition of the globe, of which the second speaks, 
will be readily and universally conceded. That the second is 
subsequent in the order of time, as well as of the narrative, to 
that act of creation recorded in the first, is equally apparent. 
That the earth was not a chaos until after its first creation, it 
surely requires no argument to prove. That this chaos existed 
before it was reduced to order, is palpably self-evident. The first 
verse then stands apart — a simple and sublime record, in general 
terms, of the creation of the heavens and the earth. With the 
second commences the specific history of our globe at the 
period immediately antecedent to the creation of man. This is 
no new interpretation forced upon us by the recent discoveries of 
geology, but is naturally suggested, nay, imperatively demanded 
by the whole analogy of Scripture; which always presupposes, and 



492 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



often asserts, the existence, of other intelligences, in other worlds, 
when " the morning stars sang together, and all the sons'of God 
shouted for joy," on witnessing the birth-day of this new creation. 
It is the earliest interpretation, based upon this analogy, and 
adopted by Justin Martyr, Basil, Origen, Theodoret, and Augus- 
tine. It is implied, in the words of Calvin, and Bishop Patrick; 
and is distinctly asserted by Buckland, Chalmers, Wardlaw, and 
other distinguished orthodox divines of modern times. 

"Neither the first verse, nor the first half of the second," says 
Chalmers (Nat. Theol. vol. i. p. 251), "forms any part of the nar- 
rative of the first day's operations — the whole forming a prepara- 
tory sentence, disclosing to us the initial act of creation at some 
remote and undefined period, and the chaotic state of the world 
at the commencement of those successive acts of creative power, 
by which, out of rude and undigested materials, the present har- 
mony of nature w^as ushered into being. Between the initial act 
and the details of Genesis, the world, for aught we know, might 
have been the theatre of many revolutions, the traces of which 
geology may still investigate." (See Buckland, p. 25.) In the 
first verse, then, we have simply the assertion of one omnipotent, 
intelligent First Cause ; in opposition to atheism, pantheism, and 
polytheism. And in this, the Bible history is sustained by the 
history recorded on the rocks. That there was a "beginning," 
and not an eternal series of beings, is proven by geology against 
the atheist. That the whole progress of the universe has been 
guided, in all its parts, by a supreme Intelligence, and not by the 
blind agency of natural law, is established by each new epoch in 
geologic history, which demanded the interference of a higher 
power amidst the sequences of nature. That this presiding in- 
telligence is One, Dr. Buckland has conclusively established, from 
that unity of design, which pervades all the creations, and all the 
events of these successive geologic cycles. 

Verse 2. — The first verse having asserted the original creation 
of all things by almighty power, the second describes the subsequent 
condition of our globe immediately antecedent to the introduction of 
man, and the preparation of the earth as an abode for himself and 
the contemporary species. It was a chaos — " emptiness and desola- 
tion" — demanding to be modified anew, and peopled with new in- 
habitants. Now, such precisely is the doctrine of geology. She tells 
us of four great geologic epochs (with their subordinate divisions) 
each distinguished by its own peculiar fossil animals ; separated 



AND NATUKAL SCIENCE. 



493 



by impassable barriers ; and terminated by terrific catastrophes, 
which buried the myriads of living beings in one common sepul- 
chre, and left the earth a chaos. 

So terrible and so universal has been this destruction of ani- 
mated beings, and so wide their diffusion over the earth, that one 
of our most recent writers, distinguished alike for accuracy of 
knowledge and sobriety of judgment, has asserted, "that, proba- 
bly not a particle of matter exists on the surface of the earth that 
has not at some time formed part of a living being." [Mrs. 
tSomerville, Phys. Geography, p. 31.) The strata containing 
similar fossils, are called "a Formation;" and each "Formation" 
indicates a decisive crisis, "an entirely new era in the earth's his- 
tory." (Agazziz, p. 185.) Between these formations, there are 
sometimes huge chasms in geologic history, where the records of 
creation are, for indefinite ages, a blank. "An immense geologic 
cycle elapsed between the secondary strata and the tertiary. The 
old creation (in the secondary strata) had nothing in common 
with the existing order of things. Amidst the myriad of beings 
that inhabited the earth and the ocean during the secondary fos- 
siliferous epochs, scarcely one (Agazziz says "none") is to be 
found in the tertiary. Two planets could hardly differ more in 
their natural productions." (Mrs. p. 24.) "Upwards of 
eight hundred extinct species of animals have been described as 
belonging to the earliest, or protozoic and siiurian period ; and of 
these only about one hundred are found in the overlying (Devo- 
nian) series, while but fifteen are common to the whole palaeozoic 
period ; and not one extends beyond it." (M. de Yerneuil, 
Ansted, and H. Miller. Old Red Sandstone, p. 216.) All — 
all obliterated! Describing one of these scenes of death and 
desolation, one of our most celebrated geologists says : " The fish 
bed of the upper Ludlow rock abounds more in osseous remains 
than an ancient burying-ground. The stratum, over wide areas, 
seems an almost continuous layer of matted bones, jaws, teeth, 
spines, scales, palatal plates, and shagreen-like prickles, all massed 
together, so that the bed when : first discovered, conveyed the 
impression,' says Mr. Murchison, 1 that it contained a triturated 
heap of black beetles.' Thus, ere our history begins (the history 
of the old red sandstone), the existences of two great systems, the 
Cambrian and Siiurian, had passed into extinction, with the excep- 
tion of what seem a few connecting links, exclusively molluscs. 
The exuviae of at least four platforms lay entombed, furlong below 



494 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION" 



furlong, amid the gray, mouldering mudstones, the consolidated 
clays, and the concretionary limestones, that underlay the ancient 
ocean of the old red sandstone. The earth had already become a 
vast sepulchre, to a depth beneath the bed of the sea, equal to 
at least twice the height of Ben Nevis, over its surface." (O. Red 
Sandstone, p. 216, 217.) 

Passing on towards our own era, we find that of all the fossil 
fishes from the silurian to the end of the tertiary period, only a 
solitary species has been preserved or re-created. Nay, the highest 
living zoological authority asserts, that during all this period, cov- 
ering the whole range of fossiliferous strata, and fossil remains 
there " are no incontestable traces of any species of animals 
now living." (Agaz. p. 204.) 

This total and universal destruction of successive races — bury- 
ing them by myriads in the same strata — piling them high above 
each other, hundreds of feet in thickness — and often amidst the 
contortions and writhings of the death-agony — has been attribu- 
ted by the great majority of geologists to some sudden and terri- 
ble catastrophe, occasioned by some inexplicable revolution in the 
economy of our planet — extinguishing former races, and preparing 
an abode for those who should succeed them, and ultimately 
for man. Such is the general doctrine of our most eminent 
geologists ; assumed as a geological axiom, in all their writings, 
or deduced as an immediate and irresistible conclusion from all 
the facts, indeed from the fundamental principles of the science. 

"The first scene in the tempest," writes Hugh Miller, "opens 
amidst the confusion and turmoil of the hurricane ; amid thun- 
ders and lightnings — the shouts of the seamen, and the wild dash 
of the billows. The history of the period represented by the old 
red sandstone, seems to have opened in a similar manner." 

"At this period of our history, some terrible catastrophe in- 
volved in sudden destruction the fish of an area, at least a hun- 
dred miles from boundary to boundary, perhaps much more 
(" 10,000 square miles in extent," next page). The same plat- 
form in Orkney, as at Cromarty, is strewed thick with remains, 
which exhibit, unequivocally, the marks of violent death. The 
figures are contorted, contracted, curved ; the tail, in many in- 
stances, is bent round to the head ; the spines stick out, the fins 
are spread to the full, as in fish that die in convulsions. The 
attitudes of all the Ichthyolites on this platform are attitudes of 
fear, anger, and pain. The remains, too, seem to have suffered 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



495 



nothing from the after attacks of predaceous fishes. None such 
seem to have survived. The record is one of destruction, at once 
widely spread, and total." (O. R. Sandstone, p. 221, 222.) 

There is, indeed, a theory which denies all catastrophes in 
general, and, of course, the particular catastrophe that wrapped a 
former world in chaotic ruin ; which asserts an absolute unifor- 
mity of the course of nature ; the operation of the same causes, 
in the same combination, and with the same intensity of action, 
through all geologic eras, and in the human period ; the gradual 
and quiet extinction of animated species to be succeeded by other 
species, formed by successively repeated acts of creative power. 
We shall not arrest the course of our argument to consider this 
theory in all its contradictions ; but remark, in passing, first, while 
seeking to avoid occasional catastrophes in the destruction of 
extinct species, it demands a perpetuated miracle in the ever-recur- 
ving act of creating new species to occupy their places. Second, 
it is contradicted by all those examples of contemporaneous races 
simultaneously destroyed, buried hundreds of species together, deep 
in the same formation, never to reappear. Of the 800 species 
belonging to the palaeozoic period, why did not one extend beyond 
it? Of all the fossil inhabitants of a former world, through all 
its successive eras, why has not one survived? Why this total 
change in the species that inhabit our globe since the deposit of 
our most recent strata? Is it that Infinite wisdom has adapted 
the new inhabitants to the altered condition of the earth ? Then 
is that condition truly altered. Altered! and yet all that 
constitutes the condition of a globe — the powers that operate 
upon its surface, and in its bosom, in their character, their combi- 
nation, and their intensity — unchanged ! 

This leads us, indeed, to the true and very obvious conclusion : 
"Every radical revolution in the condition of a globe demands 
a correspondent change in the species that inhabit it ; and con- 
versely, every decisive change in the character of its species, 
indicates some attendant change in the condition of a globe." 

Man could not have lived in that former world. He was not 
adapted to it. It was not prepared for him. 

" A partially consolidated planet, tempested by frequent earth- 
quakes of such terrible potency, that those of the historic ages 
would be but mere ripples on the earth's surface in comparison, 
could be no proper home for a creature so constituted. Fishes 
and reptiles were the proper inhabitants of our planet during 



496 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



the earth-tempests. That prolonged ages of these tempests did 
exist, and that they gradually settled down until the state of 
things became comparatively fixed and stable, few geologists 
will be disposed to deny. The evidence which supports this 
special theory of the development of our planet in its capabilities 
as a scene of organized and sentient being, seems palpable at every 
step. Look, first, at those graywacke rocks, and after marking 
how, in one place, the strata have been upturned on their edges 
for miles together ; and how, in another, the plutonic rock has risen 
molten from below — pass on to the old red sandstone, and examine 
its significant platforms of violent deetth, its faults, displacements, 
and dislocations ; see, next, in the coal-measures, those evidences 
of sinking and ever-sinking strata, for thousands of feet together ; 
mark, in the oolite, those vast overlying masses of trap, stretching 
athwart the landscape far as the eye can reach ; observe carefully 
how the signs of convulsion and catastrophe gradually lessen as 
we descend to the times of the tertiary, though even in these 
ages of the mammiferous quadruped, the earth must have had its 
oft-recurring ague-fits of frightful intensity ; and then, on closing 
the survey, consider how exceedingly partial and unfrequent these 
earth-tempests have become in the recent periods. There is a 
tract of country in Hindostan that contains nearly as many square 
miles as all Great Britain, covered to the depth of hundreds of 
feet by one vast overfloio of trap. A tract similarly overflown, 
which exceeds in area all England, occurs in Southern Africa. 
The earth's surface is roughened with such, mottled 
as thickly by the plutonic masses as the skin of the 
leopard by its spots. What could man have done on the 
globe at a time when such outbursts were comparatively common 
occurrences? What could he have done, where Edinburgh now 
stands, during that overflow of trap porphyry, of which the Pent- 
land range forms but a fragment — or that outburst of greenstone, 
of which but a portion remains in the dark, ponderous coping of 
Salisbury craigs — or when the thick floor of rock, on which the 
city stands, was broken up, like the ice of an arctic sea, during a 
tempest in spring ; and laid on edge, from where it leans against 
the Castle Hill, to beyond the quarries at Joppa? When the 
earth became a fit habitat for reptiles and birds, reptiles and birds 
were produced ; with the dawn of a more stable and mature state 
of things, the sagacious quadruped was ushered in ; and last of 
all, when man's house was fully prepared for him — when the data 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



497 



on which it is his nature to reason and calculate, had become 
fixed and certain, the reasoning and calculating brain was moulded 
by the creative finger — and man became a living soul. Such 
seems to be the reading of the wondrous inscription, chiselled deep 
in the rocks." {Foot-Prints, p. 212, 213.) In perfect harmony 
with this, is the language of Agazziz, when, having traced the 
series of animated beings from the earliest palaeozoic period to 
the age of man, he rejects the development hypothesis, and says : 
"The link by which they are connected, is of a higher and imma- 
terial nature ; and their connection is to be sought in the view of 
the Creator himself, whose aim in forming the earth, in allowing 
it to undergo the successive changes which geology has pointed 
out, and in creating successively the different orders of animals, 
was to introduce man upon the surface of our globe. Man is the 
end towards which all the animal creation has tended, from the 
first appearance of the first palaeozoic fishes." (Zoology, p. 206.) 
Such, then, were the terrific agencies, and such the universal des- 
olation, which preceded and introduced the fourth and last great 
geologic epoch, called by Agazziz, " The Reign of Man." " The 
present epoch succeeds to, but is not a continuation of the 
tertiary. These two epochs are separated by a great geologi- 
cal event, traces of which we see everywhere around us." (P. 204.) 
This great geological event, we are told, destroyed all species of 
animals, marine and terrestrial ; and left the earth and sea a total 
desolation, to be repeopled by a new creative act. 

And here our argument would seem to be conclusive ; all geo- 
logical eras, and the eternal counsels of Omnipotence have pre- 
pared the earth, at length, for the appearance of man. The last 
great catastrophe has swept away all former species, has intro- 
duced a new economy, and adapted the globe to man and his 
contemporary species. And now, shall this lord of the new crea- 
tion enter immediately upon his predestined inheritance, along 
with the inferior animals that are to be his contemporaries ? The 
Bible says, they were created simultaneously ; or with a brief 
interval, of which human science can take no cognizance. And 
precisely here, infidelity joins issue with the Mosaic history, and 
denies the truth of the record. " We have no evidence," it is 
objected, " of the existence of man along with any extinct species 
of animals. But there is evidence, that many species — now his 
contemporaries — have lived, and are buried along with species now 
extinct ; therefore, these animals must have existed before the 

32 



498 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



human era, and cannot have been created, as Moses asserts, along 
with man." 

The answer is threefold ; and is perfectly conclusive. 1st. The 
evidence asserted, is purely negative ; and it is, at once, danger- 
ous, and extremely unphilosophical, to array the want of evi- 
dence in one department, against positive, and overwhelming 
testimony in another. May not future discoveries supply this 
want of evidence ? 

2d. The objection is founded on an assumption, now refuted, 
and generally abandoned, that no extinct animal has ever 
been contemporary with man. The bird dodo is of a species 
now extinct, yet, during the earlier voyages of the Dutch navi- 
gators to the East Indies, existed in great numbers ; and Hum- 
boldt speaks of it as, " a species of large animals (now extinct) 
of which thousands existed but three centuries ago." (Cosmos, 
p. 362.) The bones of the mammoth are found mingled with 
those of the horse, deer, &c, and never with those of man ; and 
yet, it is generally admitted to have been contemporaneous with 
man. And, almost at the very period when we write, geology 
has furnished the positive testimony, which was suggested above, 
as the possible result of farther investigation. " At the meeting 
of the American Association (in 1850) Prof. Chase, of Brown 
University, exhibited some huge bones of the Dinornis ;" and 
" intimated that these gigantic birds (ten or twelve feet high, and 
attributed by Prof. Owen, to the age of the New Red Sandstone) 
had probably become extinct through the agency of man? In 
answer to an objection raised by Prof. Agazziz, " That we have 
no geological evidence of the existence of man with extinct 
species of animals" Mr. Mantell replied, " That such evi- 
dence had been recently discovered. "Bones of this 
character had been recently found, by his brother, in the bed of a 
stream, in some loose sand, where evidently was once the chan- 
nel of a river. Digging down, he found evidence of extinct fires ; 
and in these charred places were found bones of this character, 
together with human bones ; those of a dog ; the remains of 
shell-fish, and fragments of egg-shells, curved in the contrary 
direction, by the actior of fire. The reason for believing the 
animal to have been contemporaneous with man, was, that the 
bones presented a white appearance, which can only be produced 
by burning the bones ivhile they contain animal matter? (" An- 
nual of Scientific Discovery" 1850, p. 279, 280. See for a 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



499 



fuller account, and the same conclusion, Humlioldt's Cosmos, 
vol. i. p. 361, 362.) 

3d. In regard to the earlier formations, the primary, secon- 
dary, and tertiary, down to the close of the Pliocene era, which 
immediately preceded the present geographical distribution of our 
seas, continents and rivers, and prepared for the introduction of 
man, there is, and can be, no diversity of opinion. No animal 
now in being, existed during that immense period antecedent to 
the creation of man. The question, therefore, concerns only the 
so-called Pleistocene, or Newer Pliocene era ; during which (it is 
contended) and before the creation of man, these extinct animals 
existed along with some of our present species. Here, however, 
it must be admitted by every candid geologist, and felt by every 
intelligent student of the science, that all our reasonings become 
extremely vague and uncertain, and partake the nature of the 
" vicious circle.' 1 '' They prove the age of the formation, from the 
bones which it contains ; and the age of the bones from the era 
of the formation. "Thus, at Puzzuoli, near Naples," says 
Mr. Lyell, "marine strata are seen containing fragments of sculp- 
ture, pottery, and remains of buildings, together with innumer- 
able shells of the same species, as those now inhabiting the 
Mediterranean. Their emergence can be proven to have taken 
place since the beginning of the sixteenth century." Of course 
they belong to the human era ; " But the hills," he proceeds, " at 
the feet of which these strata have been deposited, are formed of 
horizontal strata of the Newer Pliocene era." Why ? " Because 
the marine shells are of living species, and yet are not accom- 
panied by any remains of man" ^Elements of Geology" p. 170.) 
Again, "Near Stockholm when the canal was dug, horizontal 
beds of sand, loam, and marl were passed through, in some of 
which the same peculiar assemblage of testacea which now live 
in the Baltic, were found. Mingled with these, at various depths, 
were detected various works of art, and some vessels, built before 
the introduction of iron." These, of course, are of the historic 
era. " There are, however, in the neighborhood of these forma- 
tions, others, precisely similar, in mineral composition, and tes- 
taceous remains, in which no vestige of human art has been 
seen. So that we must regard them as Newer Pliocene forma- 
tions" (p. 171). "All conchologists are agreed, that the shells 
of the deposits above mentioned, are nearly all, perhaps all, 
absolutely identical with those now peopling the contiguous 



500 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



ocean" (p. 171). Yet these shells themselves, belonging to species 
now existing in the contiguous ocean, and the bones of other 
existing animals, found with them, are decided to belong to the 
Pleistocene era ; because the formation itself is previously as- 
sumed to have been Pleistocene. Here, the age of the remains 
is decided by the age of the formation. But the same formation 
in the same immediate vicinity, with no other characteristic dis- 
tinction, " in mineral composition and testaceous remains, ab- 
solutely the same," is decided to belong to the human era, 
because they contain human remains. Here, the age of the for- 
mation is decided by the known age of the (human) remains. 
Having thus ascertained the age of these strata, from the pres- 
ence of man and his coexisting species, marine and terrestrial, 
would it not be more rational, to retain this position, once reached 
from certain data ; and to draw the conclusion, that the remains 
of animals, whose era is otherwise unknown, but which are 
found in strata, in all respects similar to those which are certainly 
contemporary with man, have been likewise contemporary with 
the same strata, and thus contemporary with man? Here we 
proceed on certain data, and positive evidence. In the other 
process, the evidence is wholly negative (" If we may depend 
o>n negative evidence," says Mr. L., in drawing his conclusions), 
and the assumed fact extremely doubtful. 

Leaving these doubtful speculations, and returning to established 
truth. It is acknowledged that the catastrophe which terminated 
the Pliocene era, and prepared the way for man, and his contem- 
porary species, destroyed all previously existing beings ; and then, 
the question simply is, " Whether the earth thus prepared for 
new inhabitants, was peopled at once, with its destined 
population?" Or, "Whether the creation of man was delayed, 
for indefinite centuries, after the completion of the abode, which 
all geological cycles had been preparing for him ?" It is, in fact, 
only another form of the question, " Whether the various contem- 
porary species have been created together, after the extinction 
of their predecessors ?" Or, according to Mr. LyelPs hypothesis, 
" There has been a continuous process, from day to day, and yeai 
to year, of gradual extinction of old species, throughout all geo- 
logic eras ; and, moving on parallel with it, side by side, the con- 
tinuous exercise of creative power in the production of new 
species?" That is, "Whether we shall acknowledge a single 
miraculous creation, at the commencement of each new era; 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



501 



or, perpetually recurring miracles through the whole range of 
time?" To adopt the latter proposition is, either to annihilate 
" a course of nature," by supposing another course of miracu- 
lous agency, moving on contemporaneously with it, and superior 
to it ; ot; to destroy all miraculous creation by reducing extraor- 
dinary interpositions to ordinary events ; or, rather, it is, in at- 
tempting to reconcile the two (a course of nature, and a course 
of supernatural miracles), to annihilate both ; to assert a "course 
of nature," which is not " the course of nature ;" and, " an ex- 
traordinary agency," which, after all, is "ordinary."* 



* The whole three volumes of "The Principles of Geology," by Mr. Lyell, are, but 
the defence, the illustration, and the varied application, of the doctrine of " the ab- 
solute uniformity of the course of nature, through all geologic epochs." Preface, 
page 9th, he gives it, as the express design of the "Preliminary essay," in the first 
book, to prove, " That the forces, now operating upon, and beneath the earth's sur- 
face, may be the same both in kind and in degree, with those, which at remote 
epochs, have worked out geological revolutions ; the ancient and present fluctuations 
in the organic and inorganic world, belonging to one continuous and uniform 
series of eVents." Let us remark, " the forces are the same in kind and degree," 
and include " the organic and inorganic world." Again, vol. i. p. 116, "During the 
ages contemplated in geology, there has never been any interruption to the same 
uniform laws of changer On page 130, he denies and derides " any extraordinary 
deviations from the known ' course of nature!" And on p. 118, with great simplicity, 
argues against any increase of the frequency, or intensity of earthquakes ; that if 
such increase should ever occur, or ever have occurred, it must inevitably produce 
that very chaotic condition which the Bible asserts — as the result of the " earth- 
tempests" of H. Miller, and " the turbulent conditions of our planet whilst stratifica- 
tion was in progress, and the activity of volcanic agents, then frequent and intense," 
described by Buckland (p. 103). 

" Now should one or two only of these convulsions happen in a century, it would 
be consistent with the order of events experienced by the Chilians from the earliest 
times. But," proceeds the writer, with imperturbable gravity, " but, if the whole 
of them were to occur within the next hundred years, the entire district must be 
depopulated, scarcely any plants or animals could survive ; and the surface would 
be one confused heap of ruin and desolation !" That is, would present precisely 
that scene of " ruin and desolation," which all ancient strata exhibit, and which the 
Bible expressly asserts ! 

But, if there be this " uniform and continuous series, without any interruption, 
in the organic as well as inorganic world" then, what shall we say of man ? Is he 
one term in this " uniform and continuous series," this established " course of nature ?" 
To this, Mr. Lyell replies (p. 256), "The course of nature remains evidently un- 
changed," " with the exception only of man's presence." "It is not, however, in- 
tended that a real departure from the antecedent course of physical events cannot 
be traced in the introduction of man," or " that the agency of man did not con- 
stitute an anomalous deviation from the previously established order of 
things" (p. 257, 258). 

Here then, we have "one continuous and uniform series of events," in which 
"there never has been any interruption;" and yet, "a departure from the antecedent 
course of physical events." " An anomalous deviation from the previously estab- 
lished order of things ;" and yet, again, no " extraordinary deviation from the known 
course of nature;" and still farther (p. 259), "Had he previously presumed to dog- 
matize, respecting the absolute uniformity of the order of nature, he would undoubt- 
edly be checked, by witnessing this new and unexpected event," " this peculiar and 
unprecedented agency," " this anomalous deviation from the established order," 
which "affords ground for concluding that the experience, during thousands of ages, 
of all the events which mav happen on this globe, would not enable a philosopher 



502 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



Let us now proceed to consider the history of this new creation. 

Verses 3, and 4. — These contain the first day's work, in con- 
nection with the fourth day's work, recorded in the passage, from 
the 14th verse to the 18th, both included. 

The difficulty w T hich spontaneously presents itself to every 
mind in connection with these verses, is briefly and clearly ex- 
pressed by the German rationalist, in his commentary on the pas- 
sage. " When God," says Rosenmuller, " began to arrange this 

to speculate with confidence concerning future contingencies." A continuous series, 
from which there is a departure ! A uniformity, which is not uniform ! An estab- 
lished order, from which there is an anomalous deviation ! Such is the system. 
First, it asserts an uninterrupted uniformity in the course of nature, through all 
geological epochs. Then, it acknowledges the intervention of a peculiar, and " moral 
source of temporary derangement," a supernatural agency, in the creation of man and 
other animals. Then reasserts the abandoned, and interrupted uniformity, once more. 

How shall we reconcile these apparent contradictions? By including both, says 
Mr. Lyell, the creation of species by supernatural power ; and their extinction by 
the ordinary agencies of nature, in the same " economy of nature." Let us " im- 
agine the successive creation of species to constitute, like their gradual extinction, a 
regular, part of the economy of nature." [Principles, vol. iii. p. 234.) 

Now, the " creation of species," as here employed, means the exercise of an ex- 
traordinary power, different from, and superior to the course of nature ; — for Mr. 
Lyell denies the transmutation of species, and rejects the development hypothesis in 
all its forms. Besides that ordinary course of nature, then, which extinguishes ex- 
isting species, there is, in " the economy of nature," another agency, superior to it, 
yet moving on parallel with it, through all geologic eras, and even now, calling suc- 
cessive species into existence, by creative power, from day to day, or as he hypothet- 
ically suggests, from year to year (page 238). To the objection, " that no one has 
ever ascertained the existence of any new species created, during all the centuries 
of our epoch," he replies that " the objection may seem plausible ;" and proceeds 
to show that these new species may come into being by " annual birth," and depart 
by " annual death," and yet be unobserved by men. (Vol. hi. p. 235-239.) Here 
then, is one " course of nature," to destroy, and another, in the " same economy," 
to create. Which is ' the course of nature ?" 

Here is a power called creative — in other words, supernatural, or miraculous ; yet 
in perpetual ordinary operation. A perpetual miracle ceases to be a miracle at all. 
The extraordinary agency, is, after all, ordinary. Again, it is worth the observation, 
that this creative power belongs, strangely enough, to the " same economy of 
nature," with any other power ; and its agency is sustained by the same subterfuge 
which was employed by the older atheists, and modern pantheists, and advocates of 
the development hypothesis. " To the natural objection that the earth does not now 
produce men, lions, &c. (or any new species), Epicurus answers, We are backward 
in admitting it, for the reason, that it happens in retired places, and never falls under 
our view," (fee. " It is far from being certain," says the author of the Vestiges, " that 
the primitive imparting of life and form to inorganic elements, is not a fact of our 
times." (See Foot-Prints, p. 282, 283.) " Periods of much greater duration" (says 
Mr. L.), " must elapse before it would be possible to authenticate the first appear- 
ance of one of the larger plants, and animals, assuming the annual birth and death 
of one species" (p. 239). 

Such is the the theory, then, with its manifold contradictions, its atheistic ten- 
dencies, and its appeal to the same undiscovered facts, upon which, the advocates of 
atheistic and pantheistic views have always fallen back; — that is, arrayed against 
the simple statement of the Bible, concerning the simultaneous creation, by Almighty 
power, of all the contemporary species, at the commencement of our era. See 
a total annihilation of this theory of gradual extinction of species, in Sir R. Mur- 
chison's recent address — " Proc. Royal Soc, March 7th, 1851." Between the youngest 
of the primary, and the oldest of the secondary strata, there is not one species in 
common. " An entirely new creation had succeeded to universal decay arid death." 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



50& 



formless matter, it seemed first of all necessary, that the light of 
day should dispel the ancient darkness, in which all things had 
been enveloped. Men, in the early ages of the world, could easily 
believe that light did not proceed from the sun ; but was of a fluid 
nature, since, even when the sun was obscured with clouds, they 
could perceive all things, brightened with light." That there 
should be different methods of reconciling this brief narrative of 
events, so distant in time, and so obscurely revealed, to the differ- 
ent scientific views of men, is not more astonishing than are the 
various theories devised for the purpose of harmonizing the com- 
plicated, and apparently contradictory facts in any department of 
human science. The defect is not in nature, or in revelation, but 
in man. Dr. Buckland has proposed the following method. " The 
interpretation here proposed seems to solve the difficulty, which 
would otherwise attend the statement of the appearance of light 
upon the first day, while the sun, moon and stars are not made 
to appear until the fourth. If we suppose all the heavenly bodies 
and the earth to have been created at the indefinitely distant time, 
designated by the word 'beginning;' and that the darkness de- 
scribed on the evening of the first day, was temporary darkness, 
produced by the accumulation of vapors " on the face of the deep ;" 
an incipient dispersion of these vapors may have readmitted light 
to the earth on the first day, whilst the exciting cause of light 
was still obscured ; and the further purification of the atmosphere 
on the fourth day, may have caused the sun, and moon and stars 
to reappear in the firmament of heaven, to assume their new rela- 
tions to the newly-modified earth, and to the human race." ( Geol. 
p. 33, 34.) This theory is not only ingenious, but natural and 
obvious ; and must have suggested itself to any scientific mind 
as one of the possible solutions of a difficulty which lies patent to 
the most superficial reader. It has been adopted by, perhaps, the 
major part of apologists for the Bible ; and may be found more or 
less ably developed with various modifications, additions, verbal 
alterations, and learned criticisms in many modern treatises and 
commentaries, of w 7 hich that by Bush is probably (on this subject) 
the best, and most generally accessible. So that it lies within the 
reach of every candid inquirer, and need not delay us here with 
itb prolonged consideration. In its defence, thus much at least 
may be confidently affirmed. It must, in all fairness, be acknowl- 
edged that the inspired narrative neither expressly asserts nor 
necessarily implies that the darkness of chaos was eternal. Neither 



504 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



does the phrase, "Let there be light," nor the immediately subse- 
quent appearance of light amidst the chaotic darkness deny its 
antecedent existence, more than the bursting of light upon the 
midnight darkness now at the divine command, or even the dawn 
of day in the ordinary course of nature could be supposed to dis- 
prove the reality of the previous day. In one case, as in the other, 
the darkness may have been temporary. The geologist may well 
assert the existence of light during that long period which pre- 
ceded the chaotic condition of our planet on the same principle 
which asserts the antecedent existence of animated beings, for 
these animated beings have organs of vision constructed on the 
same optical principles with our own. (Buckland, vol. i. p. 134-136.) 
But during that chaotic condition the evidence wholly 
fails, and along with it the argument, for there is then 
neither animal nor organ ; and may not the same mysterious cir- 
cumstances in the early economy of our planet, which led to the 
destruction of all animated beings by causes inscrutable to us, 
have so affected the condition of our atmosphere by causes not 
more inexplicable, as to overload it with vapors impenetrable by 
light, or alter its chemical constitution, or otherwise modify those 
unknown circumstances which are necessary to the evolution and 
the manifestation of that still mysterious influence, to which, 
though ignorant of its nature, we give the name of light? Sim- 
ilar reasoning may be legitimately applied to the words, " Let 
there be lights," or "luminaries," or "light-bearers," in the 14th 
verse. 

The principal difficulty in this interpretation will be found by 
many minds in the words of the 16th verse, " God made two 
great luminaries." "The text may imply," says Dr. Buckland, 
" that these bodies were then prepared and appointed to cer- 
tain offices of high importance to mankind, i to give light upon 
the earth ;' ' to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for 
years.' " 

"The original word for 'made,' " says another advocate of this 
interpretation, Mr. Bush, "is not the same as that which is ren- 
dered 'created.' It is a term frequently employed to signify 
constituted, appointed, set for a particular purpose or use. 
And these luminaries though actually called into existence previ- 
ously, were henceforth, by their rising and setting, to be the visi 
ble means of producing this separation, or succession," viz., of 
light and darkness, dav and night. But here the difficulty 



AND NATURAL &CIENCE. 



505 



will recur: "There is a difference, clearly, between the mere 
appointment to an office and the physical adaptation to that 
especial service." Here it is perfectly manifest that the writer 
speaks not of mere official appointment, but of physical adapta- 
tion. The sun and moon had ceased to be " the visible" lights of 
heaven. They now became such ; whether by a change in their 
own physical condition, or in the constitution of our atmosphere, 
is not asserted in the text. Again, the same Hebrew word which, 
in this interpretation, is rendered " appointed" or " constituted," is 
employed, in its ordinary sense, in the same narration, verse 7th, 
"And God made the firmament," where it is surely applied to a 
remodification, at least, of pre-existing materials, and their physi- 
cal adaptation to new purposes. To assume that the same word 
is used in different senses in the same narrative, on the same gen- 
eral subject, and in a similar connection, can only be justified by 
the most stringent necessity. Yet even this difficulty is by no 
means greater than those which attend many physical hypotheses 
now generally adopted ; and this may be held, as they are, 
conditionally — as a possible solution, until one more satisfactory 
may be providentially suggested. 

But what if the solution so laboriously sought lies palpably on 
the surface? What if the objection contains its own confutation, 
and suggests, nay, employs the very words of that modern the- 
ory of light which is now generally adopted by philosophers? 

What if the temporary darkness and subsequent reillumination 
of our sun be (according to our profoundest astronomers) not only 
a possible, but an extremely probable event, rendered probable by 
many similar occurrences in the heavens, recorded within 
the last three hundred years, and by some even now transpiring 
under the scrutiny of our telescopes ! What if the great names 
of La Place and Argelander, of Herschell and Humboldt, are 
arrayed, on astronomical principles, decisively in favor of this 
view ? 

What if the greatest physical philosophers of our day have 
advanced still farther, and not only announced this variability of 
our sun's light, but its actual variation in past time as 
extremely probable ? And finally, what if they have from 
geological phenomena identified one period of its obscuration with 
that great geological event which terminated the tertiary epoch, 
and immediately preceded the present distribution of our land and 
water — our oceans, rivers, and continents 1 



506 



THE HAEMONY OF REVELATION 



NOW THE ASSERTIONS IMPLIED IN THESE SUCCESSIVE QUES- 
TIONS CONTAIN THE SIMPLE STATEMENT OF HISTORIC FACTS. 

The evidence we proceed immediately to adduce ; and it will ap- 
pear, that every proposition which can be fairly educed from the 
most literal interpretation of the Mosaic record, is in perfect, and 
indeed surprising harmony, with the latest and even the boldest 
theories of modern science. According to the most literal inter- 
pretation, the following three propositions may be considered as 
involved in the sacred narrative : — 

First. That light is wholly independent of the sun. According 
to the objection, its phenomena result from the movements of a 
"subtle fluid." 

Second. The sun is not self-luminous, but is a " lightbearer" 
only; cptigryy in the Greek translation, "Maor" in the original 
Hebrew ; the place or body where the light is concentrated, as 
clearly distinguished in the original from the light itself, as the 
lamp, or the lamp-post, from the light which they " bear." 

Third. The sun has not always been thus a "great luminary'' 
or "lightbearer," but at the period of the last re-organization of 
our system from the ruins of chaos, experienced (whether, for the 
first time, or after a temporary obscuration, is not asserted) that 
physical change in the constitution of his mass, on which depends 
the evolution of light and heat — the photiferous, or light-giving 
power. 

1st. Light is wholly independent of the sun. Whatever may 
be our theory of light, the "molecular," or the " modulatory," or 
whether we have any theory at all, the same great facts are in- 
disputably true. The unknown cause of our visual sensations, to 
which we give the name of light, as if it w T ere some separate mate- 
rial substance, is, within all known distances, universally diffused. 
It is not confined to the sun, or the direct radiation, or the reflec- 
tion of his rays, but is developed almost illimitably from all the 
objects around us, through human instrumentality, by mechan- 
ical friction, by chemical combination. It is present in the 
most distant nebulae of the farther heavens; it bursts from the 
bowels of the earth in volcanic eruptions ; it pervades the pro- 
foundest depths of the ocean, where flowers of variegated and 
brilliant hues are known to grow, and fish to dwell amidst circum- 
stances that would be as midnight darkness to our eyes. It ap- 
pears highly probable from recent discoveries," says Dr. Buckland, 
" that light is not a material substance, but only an effect of un- 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



507 



dulations of ether ; that this infinitely subtle and elas. c ether per- 
vades all space, and even the interior of all bodies ; so long as it 
remains at rest, there is total darkness ; when it is put into a pe- 
culiar state of vibration, the sensation of light is produced ; this 
vibration may be excited by various causes, by the sun, by the stars, 
by electricity, combustion, &c. If, then, light be not a substance, 
but only a series of vibrations of ether, that is, an effect produced 
on a subtle fluid by the excitement of one or many extraneous 
causes, it can hardly be said, nor is it said in Gen. i. 3, to have 
been created, though it may be literally said to be called into ac- 
tion/' (P. 35.) 

It is apparent, then, that the philosophy of Moses is infinitely 
superior to that of his German assailant in regard to the true 
nature of light, and its relation to the sun. 

Is this coincidence wholly fortuitous between the 
teachings of our latest philosophy and those of an author who 
wrote more than three thousand years ago, and upon a point 
where the doctrines of both are in direct antagonism to the natu- 
ral conclusions of the learned and unlearned, derived from all the 
ordinary phenomena? Or is it a "corroborative harmony?" 

2d. The body of the sun is not self-luminous, but a "light- 
bearer ;" not itself intrinsically light, but illuminated by a lumi- 
nous atmosphere, or strata of luminous matter, by which this dark 
body is surrounded. 

Since the observations of Dr. Wilson and the elder Herschell 
upon the sun's spots, this is generally conceded. The idea of 
dark bodies revolving around the sun, is long since exploded. 
" But what are the spots ?" asks Sir John Herschell. " Many 
fanciful notions have been broached upon this subject, but only 
one seems to have any degree of physical probability, viz., that 
they are the dark, or, at least, comparatively dark, solid body of 
the sun itself, laid bare to our view by those immense fluctuations 
in the luminous regions of its atmosphere, to which it appears to 
be subject." (" Outlines of Astronomy" p. 223.) 

" The sun." says Nicholl, the gifted professor of astronomy :n 
Glasgow University, "the sun consists mainly of a dark mass, like 
the body of the earth and_pther planetary globes; which is sur- 
rounded by two atmospheres, of enormous depths, the one nearest 
him being, like our own, cloudy and dense ; while the loftier stra- 
tum consists of those dazzling, phosphorescent zephyrs, that bestow 



508 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



light and heat on so many surrounding spheres." (" I lanetary 
System" p. 325, new Ed.) 

3d. That the sun has not been uniformly thus a great "light- 
bearer," but after a temporary obscuration probably, was re-illu- 
mined at the commencement of our present economy. "No more 
is light inherent in the sun," says Nicholl, " than in Tycho's van- 
ished star ; and as with it and other orbs, the time may come 
when he shall cease to be required to shine." (P. 341.) Sir J. 
Herschell having discovered that a large and brilliant star, called 
Alpha Orionis, had sustained in the course of six weeks a loss 
of nearly half its light, remarks, " This phenomenon cannot fail to 
awaken attention, and revive those speculations which were first 
put forth by my father, Sir W. Herschell, respecting the possibility 
of a change in the lustre op our sun itself. If there be 
really a community of nature between the sun and the fixed stars, 
every proof that we obtain of the extensive prevalence of such 
periodical changes in those remote bodies, adds to the probability 
of finding something of the kind nearer home." (" Proceedings 
Royal Ast. Soc." Jan. 1840.) " The question cannot fail to suggest 
itself here," says Nicholl, "whether the sun is now as he 
ever will be, or only in one state or epoch of his efficacy, 
as the radiant source of light and heat? The new star in Cassi- 
opeia, seen by Tycho, for instance, indicated some great change 
in the light and heat of an orb. That star never moved from its 
place ; and during its course, from extreme brilliancy to apparent 
extinction, the color of its light altered, passing through the hues 
of a dying conflagration. Many other stars have altered slowly 
in magnitude, also preserving rigorous inviolability of place ; and 
some, as Sirius, have changed color ; this star having turned from 
the fixed Dog-star of old times, red and fiery as Mars, into the 
brilliantly white orb now adorning our skies. Is it not likely, 
then, that the intrinsic energies to whose development these phe- 
nomena must be owing, act also in our sun, that he also may 
pass through phases, filling up myriads of centuries, once, perhaps, 
shining upon Uranus, with a lustre as burning as that which now 
dazzles Mercury?" (" Solar System," p. 130, 131.) It would be 
difficult to present within the limited sj^ace assigned to this discus- 
sion, even a small portion of that evidence upon which these sug- 
gestions have been based. They bring us, at once, amidst the 
sublimest and most startling discoveries of our modern astronomy, 
to the contemplation of stupendous changes, past, present, and 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



509 



future, which have occurred, which are occurring, which may be 
legitimately anticipated in the remoter heavens. They link to- 
gether in harmonious union those two great sciences, astronomy 
and geology, as complemental portions of one, still sublimer and 
more comprehensive science ; and show us, that, while this earth 
has been the theatre of many revolutions in its progressive prepa- 
ration for its destined occupants, the same great law of change 
and progress pervades the universe around, and revolutions still 
more magnificent by agencies equally terrific and irresistible, have 
marked the history of those upper worlds. 

For the sake of simplicity and distinctness, we shall present all 
that our limits will allow, in the form of separate and successive 
propositions. 

1st. Many suns once shining in our heavens, have since, within 
the knowledge and the memory of man, become, at least for an 
uncalculated period, apparently extinct ; have wholly ceased 
to shine. Others have varied greatly in their light, in its in- 
tensity, and color ; gradually or suddenly increased, diminished, 
or totally suspended. And these startling revolutions, once de- 
rided as the exaggerations of ignorance or superstition, are now 
amongst the established facts of astronomical science, and the 
familiar objects of contemporary observation.* 

* " There are many well- authenticated cases of the disappearance of old stars, 
whose places had been fixed with a degree of certainty not to be doubted. In Oc- 
tober, 1781, Sir William Herschell observed a star, No. 55, in Flamsted's Catalogue, 
in the Constellation Hercules. In 1790, the same star was observed by the same 
astronomer, but since that time, no search has been able to detect it. The stars 
named 80 and 81, in the same constellation, both of the fourth magnitude, have 
likewise disappeared. In May, 1828, Sir John Herschell missed the star numbered 
42, in the Constellation Virgo, Avhich has never since been seen. Examples might 
be multiplied, but it is unnecessary. In these cases, the stars have been lost entirely 
— no return has ever been marked." (Mitchell's " Planetary and Stellar Worlds" 
p. 294, 295.) The variable star, in the neck of the whale, called " Mira Ceti," changes 
from the second magnitude to the eleventh, and sometimes vanishes altogether. In 
the 173 years, during which we have reports of the magnitude of the beautiful 
star, "Eta of Argo," it has undergone from eight to nine oscillations, in the aug- 
mentation and diminution of its light. It has increased from the fourth to the first 
magnitude, and from 1838 to 1850, has remained equal in brilliancy to Canopus — 
probably superior — and almost equal to Sirius. (See Hnmboldfs " Cosmos" vol. iii. 
p. 151-182.) For a complete list of new and of "variable stars," and most impor- 
tant conclusions (derived from these astonishing phenomena) regarding the changes 

PAST AND FUTURE, IN THE CONDITION OF OUR OWN SUN AND THE OTHER fixed Stars. 

Especially, p. 164 and 181. 

" The star Eta of Argus," says Sir J. Herschell, " has always hitherto been re- 
garded as a star of the second magnitude ; and I never had reason to suppose it 
variable. In November of 1837, 1 saw it as usual. Judge of my surprise to find, on 
the 16th of December, that it had suddenly become a star of the first magnitude, 
and almost equal to Rigel. It continued to increase. Rigel is now not to be com- 
pared with it ; it exceeds Arcturus, and is very near equal to Alpha Centauri, being 
at the moment I write, the fourth star in the heavens, in the order of brightness." 



510 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



2d. Many suns, once obscured for longer or shorter periods— 
for days, or centuries — have been re-illumined : while others, 
which once shone with a faint and feeble light, have been kindled 
up into ten-fold brilliancy, which they still retain. 

3d. The period of obscuration is decided by causes, whose 
agency is sometimes regular ; sometimes totally incalculable ; 
varying fiom the duration of a few hours, in calculated cases, to 
one hundred years in some, to three hundred years, -probably, 
in others; and in others again (unless the obscuration be final), 
extending over many centuries ; or (to use the strong language 
of Humboldt, " Cosmos" vol. iii. p. 164) "in the great major- 
ity," over " extremely long, and therefore unmeasured, and 

PROBABLY UNDETERMINABLE PERIODS."* 

For conclusions similar to those of Humboldt, derived from the same phenomena, 
see " Outlines of Astron," p. 527, and " Astron. Observations," p. o51 ; by Sir J. 
Herschell, as quoted under " Propos." 6th and 7th, hereafter. 

* More than two thousand years ago, the celebrated Greek astronomer Hippar- 
chus was astonished by the sudden bursting forth of a brilliant star in a region on 
the heavens where none, before, existed. In 1572, 1604, 1607, and recently in 
1848. similar occurrences took place, the latter being less remarkable than the pre- 
ceding, for the exceeding brilliancy of the star. Twenty-one instances are enumer- 
ated by Humboldt (" Cosmos," vol. iii. p. 155-160) of a correspondent character. That 
of 1572, called "Tycho's Star," because observed by the great Danish astronomer, 
was the most remarkable. It burst forth instantaneously in the full blaze of its 
brightness. The very peasants paused to gaze with astonishment upon the wonder- 
ful stranger in the skies. It surpassed Jupiter in brilliancy, and was visible in the 
broad light of day. It gradually changed from white to yellow-reddish, became 
faintly blue, then disappeared from the heavens, and has never since been seen. 
Herschell supposes that it may be identical with the stars seen in 945 and 1264, and 
thus that the period of its obscuration is a little more than three hundred years. 
(See Tycho Brache's own account of its sudden discovery, and variations. " Cosmos" 
vol. iii. p. 152, 153.) The period of variability in the star % Cygni, is about 100 years. 
In the great majority of these cases, the stars have disappeared, during a period, 
varying from 250 to 1600 years, and are either finally extinguished, as La Place 
supposes, or have vast and incalculable periods of alternate darkness, and reillumina- 
tion, according to the theory of Humboldt. This latter writer supposes with Her- 
schell, in his " Astron. Observations," that variability, and not uniformitv, in the 
quantity of light, is the common character of suns. " We are led," says he, " by 
analogy, to infer that, as the fixed stars universally have not merely an apparent 
but a real motion of their own, so their surfaces or luminous atmospheres are gen- 
erally subject to those changes (in their ' light-process'), which recur, in the great 
majority, in extremely long, and therefore unmeasured, and probably undeterminable 
periods ; or which, in a few, recur without being periodical, as it were by a sudden 
revolution, either for a shorter or a longer time." (Vol. iii. p. 164.) That all this is 
equally ,true of our sun, as one of the fixed stars, see p. 180. In regard to a sub- 
sequent re-illumination of a sun whose light has thus disappeared, he says : " What 
we no longer see is not necessarily annihilated. It is merely the transition of matter 
into new forms — into combinations which are subject to new processes. Dark cos- 
mical bodies may, by a renewed process of light, again become luminous." That 
such a body, which had lost its light for centuries, and perhaps myriads of years, 
may be re-illumined (as was our sun), and shine on again as it did before, is prac- 
tically proven by a star now shining in our sky, called 34 Cygnus. It appeared, for 
the first time since the commencement of astronomical records, in the year 1600, 
and still remains a star of the sixth magnitude. Was it first created in 1600 ? Or 
was it only invisible till then } Had it been always invisible ? Or like the stars of 



AND NAriRAL SCIENCE. 



511 



4th. These changes, whether partial or entire, cannot be 
rationally attributed ; are not, by our great philosophers 
La Place, Herschell, Humboldt, or any of that class op 
thinkers, ever attributed, to gradual change of position, 
nearer, or more remote. They remain uniformly stationary, and 
in almost every case (with only three exceptions) these new stars 
blazed forth at once with unequalled brilliancy, as stars of the 
first magnitude. " The appearance of the star of 1572 was so 
sudden, that Tycho Brache, the celebrated Danish astronomer, 
returning one evening from his laboratory to his dwelling-house, 
was surprised to find a group of country people gazing at a star, 
which he was sure did not exist (visibly) half an hour 
before." (" Outlines of Astronomy" p. 526, by Sir J. Herschell.)* 

5th. Our sun is one of these fixed stars; and whatever 
is ascertained as certainly true of them as to their constitution 
and general history, may be assumed a priori as probable in re- 
gard to him. The phenomena upon his surface ; the vast extent 
and probable origin of his spots — fifty thousand miles in diame- 
ter, and generated by " the play of sudden and tremendous forces 
within his atmospheres ;" " the surging and bursting of those at- 
mospheres" t themselves; the certainty of these changes in his 
state, and their " undoubted and intimate connection with the 
supply of light and heat to our globe," { indicate the presence of 
agencies which identify him in character and destiny with the 
great central suns of other systems. Again, those extraordinary 
changes in the climate of our globe, so great that the fossil re- 
mains of the remotest north are said to indicate a tropical atmos- 
phere ; so sudden, that the animals of an earlier era have been 
arrested where they stood, and embalmed in perpetual ice ; — these 
indubitable changes have directed the attention of our most emi- 

Flamsted's Catalogue, observed by the Herschell's, had it disappeared for a season, 
to reappear in its appointed time ? If the latter be the reasonable supposition, 

THEN IT FURNISHES, " MUTATO NOMINE," THE HISTORY OK OUR SUN. 

* " Those stars," says La Place, " that have become invisible, after having sur- 
passed the brilliancy of Jupiter, have not changed their place during the time of 
their being visible." "The luminous process in them has simply ceased." adds 
Humboldt, and in confirmation of this view, further urges (page 161), " The circum- 
stance, that almost all these new stars burst forth at once with extreme brilliancy, 
as stars of the first magnitude, and even with still stronger scintillation, and that 
they do not appear, at least to the naked eye, to increase grapually in brightness." 
The theory of "cosmical clouds," intercepting for centuries, the light of these distant 
bodies, iti now abandoned, and Herschell unites with La Place, and Humboldt, and 
Nicholl, and his own distinguished father, in recognizing an actual change in the 
light and heat of the fixed stars. 

f Nicholl's Plan. Sys., p. 326. \ Herschell's Astros, p. 228. 



512 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



nent astronomers to a cause connected with variations in the light 
and heat of our sun. Speaking of the " singular and surprising 
alterations of brightness in the southern star," called Eta of Argos, 
Sir John Herschell says, "Ail at once, in the beginning of 1838, 
it suddenly increased in lustre, so as to surpass all the stars of the 
first class in magnitude, except Sirius and Canopus, and Alpha 
Centauri, which last star it nearly equalled. Thence it again 
diminished (but this time not below the first magnitude) until 
April, 1843, when it had again increased so as to surpass Canopus, 
and nearly equal Sirius in splendor." " Here we have," he pro- 
ceeds, " a star fitfully variable to an astonishing extent, and whose 
fluctuations (previously noticed by him) are spread over centuries, 
apparently in no settled period, and with no regularity of progres- 
sion. What origin can we ascribe to these sudden flashes and 
"elapses? What conclusions are we to draw as to the comfort 
and habitability of a system, depending for its supply of light and 
heat on so uncertain a source? Speculations of this kind can 
hardly be termed visionary, when we consider that we are com- 
pelled to admit a community of nature between the fixed stars 
and our own sun ; and when w 7 e reflect that geology testifies to 
the fact of extensive changes having taken place at epochs of the 
most remote antiquity in the climate and temperature of our 
globe — changes difficult to reconcile with the operation of sec- 
ondary causes, such as a different distribution of sea and land, 
but w 7 hich would find an easy and natural explanation in a slow 
variation of the supply of light and heat afforded primarily by 
the sun himself." ( "Outlines" p. 527, 528.) Here, then, we find 
that the greatest astronomer of this age asserts the indisputable 
" community of nature between our own sun and the fixed stars ;" 
and from the "surprising and singular" changes in even one of 
them, deduces the strong probability of analogous changes in the 
sun. Then turning to the surface of our earth, and the organic 
remains beneath the surface, he finds in the geologic monuments 
a practical confirmation of the views to which astronomy had led 
him. The conclusion thus attained from two independent sciences, 
and doubly confirmed by their harmonious combination in one as- 
tonishing result, gives direct and important confirmation to the 
Mosaic record. It tells us that our sun is, in astronomic phrase, 
" a variable star," and as such, liable to all those changes which 
have been noticed amongst them ; and if the Bible says " this 
variable star once lost for a season its light-giving power," As- 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



513 



tronomy replies, "It is extremely probable that such an event 
may have occurred ; for every degree and kind of variation, from 
a slight diminution of light to total extinction, from a slow and 
gradual increase to a sudden outburst of unparalleled magnifi- 
cence, has been witnessed already within the brief space, and with 
the imperfect instruments, of three short centuries of observation. 
Such a change, moreover, in the light and heat of our sun would 
' naturally and easily explain' the otherwise inexplicable phe- 
nomena which Geology has recorded, but in vain attempted to 
elucidate." (See to the same purpose, " Cosmos" vol. iii. p. 181. 
Mrs. Some? % ville , s " Connection of the Physical (Sciences" p. 407. 
NicholVs "Planetary System" p. 341, Note.) 

Cth. Astronomy has gone farther still in confirmation of the 
Bible ; and not only asserted the possibility and probability of 
such an obscuration of our sun, but combining these phenomena 
in the sun and the fixed stars with those observed upon the earth, 
has asserted such an event as an actual occurrence ; and proceed- 
ing to ascertain its geologic epoch, has identified it with that great 
geologic event which (according to Mr. Agazziz) terminated the ter- 
tiary period — destroyed all previously existing animated beings, and 
introduced the fourth great era — The Reign of Man. It is 
to this era of darkness, and consequently universal ice, when the 
light and heat of our sun were together withdrawn, that Mr. Hers- 
chell alludes in the following decisive passage : — " I cannot other- 
wise understand" {without a general " change of climate") alterna- 
tions of heat and cold so extensive as at one period to have clothed 
high northern latitudes with a more than tropical luxuriance of 
vegetation, at another to have buried vast tracts of Middle Europe, 
now enjoying a genial climate, and smiling with fertility, under a 
glacier crust of enormous thickness. Such changes seem to point 
to causes more powerful than the mere local distribution of land 
and water (according to Mr. Lyell's views) can well be supposed to 
have been. In the slow secular variations of our supply of light 
and heat from the sun, which, in the immensity of time 

PAST, MAY HAVE GONE TO ANY EXTENT, AND SUCCEEDED EACH 

other in any order, without violating the analogy of sidereal 
phenomena which we know to have taken place, we have a 
cause, not indeed established as a fact, but readily admissible as 
something beyond a bare possibility, fully adequate to the utmost 
requirements of geology. A change of half a magnitude in the 
lusf re of the sun regarded as a fixed star, spread over successive 

33 



514 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION" 



geological epochs, now progressive — now receding — now station- 
ary — is what no astronomer would now hesitate to admit as a 
perfectly reasonable, and not improbable supposition." ("Astro- 
nomical Observations" p. 351. 1847.) These views, suggested 
first by La Place and Herschell (Sir William), and thus developed 
and applied by Sir John in 1847, have entered since into the gen- 
eral mind, and received the approbation of the most eminent men 
of science. " The probably great physical similarity in the pro- 
cess of light in all self-luminous stars (in the central body of our 
own planetary system, and in the distant suns or fixed stars), has 
long and justly directed attention to the importance and signifi- 
cance which attach to the periodical or non-periodical variation in 
the light of the stars in reference to the varying temperature which 
our earth has derived in the course of thousands of years from 
the radiation of the sun. Supposing that our sun has passed 
through only a very few of those variations in intensity of light 
and heat, either in an increasing or decreasing ratio (and why 
should it differ from other suns?), such a change — such a 
weakening or augmentation of its light-process, may account 
for far greater and more fearful results for our own planet than 
any required for the explanation of all geognostic relations and 
ancient telluric revolutions." (" Cosmos" vol. iii. p. 181, 182.) It 
will here be seen, that both Herschell and Humboldt connect the 
explanation of these geological facts with changes in the light 
and heat of the sun ; — that these changes may have been " to any 
extent, and in any order," for, exclaims Humboldt, " Why 
should it differ from other sans ?" — that here is " a cause," not 
otherwise u established as a fact" but the only cause known, and 
11 f ully adequate" to the effect ; and the supposition of which, every 
astronomer must admit to be both " reasonable and not improba- 
ble." The era of the change, or last obscuration, is the glacier 
period of Agazziz — the chaotic period of Moses. "A period of 
universal darkness and universal death," says the one ; 
"a period of universal death, and universal cold, and 
ice almost universal," responds the other. "A temporary ces- 
sation of the sun's radiant light and heat considered is a fixed 
star" says Moses. "Their luminous surfaces are gener- 
ally subject to those changes at extremely long, probably un- 
determinable periods;" and "Why should he differ from other 
suns?" replies Humboldt. "From 'Tycho's star,' which has not 
shone during almost three hundred years? From Kepler's star 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



515 



of 1604, for two centuries and a half totally obscured ? From 
the star 34 Cygnus, which, after being obscured since the earliest 
records of astronomy, ' through unmeasured periods,' was re- 
illumined two hundred and fifty years ago, and still shines on 
a star of the sixth magnitude in the heavens ; an indisputable 
instance of a sun for centuries, totally extinguished, and already 
entered, once more, on a new career of light?" 

7th. Should any one doubt the certainty of the conclusion (in 
regard to the supposed connection between these geological and 
astronomical phenomena), derived by these distinguished phi- 
losophers from the facts and the principles above adduced ; let 
it be remarked, that this does not even impair, much less can it 
neutralize, the force of our reasoning. For the doubt affects, not 
the general facts and principles (these are assumed as indis- 
putable), but their application; viz. to explain phenomena 
which some may suppose to be capable of a plausible explana- 
tion (though none can say it is completely satisfactory) on other 
grounds. But if there be the slightest probability in their hypoth- 
esis, then it all enures to the advantage of the Christian argu- 
ment ; and is another instance of corroborative harmony, where 
ignorance had asserted absolute contradiction. 

Is it said, "These are but the bold conjectures of adventurous 
and daring minds, pushing their speculations into a region w4iere 
all is uncertainty, at best." The objection proceeds from igno- 
rance, but we answer — 1st. What is it that has thus become so 
suddenly uncertain ? Is it, "that our sun is one of the fixed 
stars, and the fixed stars are suns? That these suns are subject 
to prodigious changes — vast in extent and duration — passing from 
dazzling brilliancy to dimness, and ultimate invisibility, now 
fading utterly away, after being seen for centuries ; now blazing 
up instantaneously, and continuing to shine for ages? That 
these changes are sometimes regular, at others irregular ; some 
observed and known to return after calculated intervals ; others, 
extending over periods so vast as to elude human observation and 
baffle human scrutiny, and that this is the common character of 
suns V Now if all this be uncertain, then astronomy is all 
an illusion, and the telescope an instrument of falsehood and of 
folly. But how can such an illusion shake the firm foundations 
of our faith ? 

2d. When science has spent her centuries of laborious investi 
gation, and at last oomes forth with the highest speculations of 



516 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



her highest minds, and religion accepts her theory as probable 
and appropriates her speculation, shall she then recoil from her 
own conclusions, and renounce her sublimest theories of nature, 
because they are found to coincide with the revelations of the 
God of nature? Is not their harmony a mutual confirmation? 

3d. Is it an argument against the credibility of Moses, that, 
after three thousand years of physical inquiry, and with all the 
improved instruments of modern times ; the theory, the specula- 
tion, the conjecture, if you please, which is most probable, 
which appears most consistent with all the ascertained phenomena, 
is precisely that which furnishes, if true, the most instructive com- 
mentary on his ancient narrative? 

Let us briefly review the argument. The objection has been 
taken not from the ribald ignorance of Paine, but from the calm, 
cool, contemptuous irony of German learning, as it smiles from 
its sublime and serene elevation, upon the simple credulity of 
"the early ages." It objects, 

1st. That according to Moses, light appears to be " of a fluid 
nature." We have shown that the "undulatory" or "wave- 
theory" of light, sustained as it is, by the experiments of Prof. 
Airy, and the reasoning of Herschell, and confirmed by the in- 
vestigations of our own Prof. Henry, is now the accepted theory 
amongst scientific men. That "light is produced by a series of 
vibrations of a subtle fluid." 

2d. That, originally, "it does not proceed from the sun." We 
have shown that it is wholly independent of the sun, that it 
l ' pervades all space, and even the interior of all bodies ;" and 
wherever any of the various circumstances exist, which are capable 
of producing these "peculiar vibrations" there light exists. 

3d. We have shown that the sun is not light, but " a light- 
bearer." Himself a dark body, receiving light from the same 
"luminous atmosphere" which illuminates our earth. 

4th. That the unknown agencies necessary to the develop- 
ment of light in our own sun, and the other fixed stars, are vari- 
able, indefinitely, both in intensity and duration; their light 
alternately increasing and diminishing; suspended altogether 
and afterwards revived ; and these changes extended over periods 
of calculable, and others of uncalculated length. 

5th. The Bible records one of these, which occurred six thou- 
sand years ago. Astronomy, many precisely similar^ within the 
last three hundred years. 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



517 



6th. Astronomy sees, even now, in the "luminous atmos- 
pheres" of the sun, traces of the agency of tremendous forces, 
which lay bare its dark surface for many hundred thousand 
square miles in extent, and operate upon a scale of magnificence, 
to which terrestrial phenomena present no parallel. " The play 
of sudden, tremendous, and evanescent forces, either connected 
with the solid body of the sun, or generated within his atmos- 
pheres, and made apparent by the surging and bursting of those 
atmospheres, has become," says Nicholl, " an absolute fact." 

7th. The earth, too, is one of those astronomic worlds ; and 
geology has discovered evidences of variations in her climate, 
precisely corresponding to these supposed variations in the sun, 
that is, just such a change in her temperature, as those changes 
in the sun's light and heat would naturally and necessarily pro- 
duce; and the last great change thus asserted by geology, is said 
to have terminated the former geologic era, and prepared the earth 
for man. It corresponds of course with the Mosaic chaos ; and 
we need hardly say, that such a revolution in the condition of the 
sun, would necessarily involve the most terrific consequences to 
our world. 

Thus have we passed in rapid review many of the most won- 
derful discoveries, and loftiest speculations of modern science, and 
have everywhere found that the progress of knowledge has con- 
verted the infidel objection into a real harmony. Did our limits 
permit, it would be easy to point out other coincidences equally 
remarkable, and to answer other plausible objections. But, if 
these greater difficulties (by many supposed to be insuperable) 
have been really removed, then the subordinate objections will 
spontaneously disappear. We cannot more appropriately con- 
clude this prolonged discussion than by quoting the following 
striking and just remarks of an eloquent contemporary writer : 
"There is, then, no physical error in the Scriptures, and this 
great fact becomes always more admirable in proportion as it is 
more closely contemplated. Never will you find a single sen- 
tence in opposition to the just notions which science has imparted 
to us, concerning the form of our globe, its magnitude, and its 
geology, upon the void, and upon space, upon the planets and 
their masses, their courses, their dimensions, or their influences, 
upon the suns which people the depths of space, upon their 
number their natuie, their immensity. You shall not find one 



518 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



of the authors of the Bible, who has in speaking of the visible 
world, let fall from his pen one only of those sentences which in 
other books contradict the reality of facts ; none who makes the 
heavens a firmament, as do the Seventy — St. Jerome, and all the 
Fathers of the church; none who makes the world, as Plato did, 
an intelligent animal ; none who reduces everything below to 
the four physical elements of the ancients ; not one who has 
spoken of the mountains as Mahomet did, of the cosmogony as 
BufTon, of the antipodes as Lucretius, as Plutarch, as Pliny, as 
Lactantius, as St. Augustine, as the Pope Zachary. When the 
Scriptures speak of the form of the earth they make it a globe. 
When they speak of the position of this globe in the bosom of 
the universe, they suspend it upon nothing. When they 
speak of its age, not only do they put its creation as well as that 
of the heavens, in the "beginning," that is, before the ages which 
they cannot or will not number; but they are also careful to 
place it before the breaking up of chaos and the creation of man, 
the creation of angels, of archangels, of principalities and powers ; 
their trial ; the fall of some, and their ruin, the perseverance of 
others, and their glory. When they speak of the heavens, they 
employ to designate and to define them the most philosophic and 
the most elegant expression, an expression which the Greeks, in 
the Septuagint translation, the Latin Vulgate, and all the Chris 
tian Fathers in their discourses, have pretended to improve, and 
which they have distorted, because it seemed to them, opposed to 
the science of their day. The heavens in the Bible are "the 
expanse," they are the vacant space, or ether, or immensity, 
and not the " firm amentum," of Jerome, nor the " arsqiibfia^ of 
the Alexandrian interpreters, nor the eighth heaven, firm, solid, 
crystalline and incorruptible, of Aristotle and of all the ancients. 
And although the Hebrew term so remarkable, recurs seventeen 
times in the Old Testament, and the Seventy have rendered it 
seventeen times, by " artQlibuu" (firmament), never have the Scrip- 
tures in the New Testament used this expression of the Greek 
interpreters in this sense. When they speak of the air, the grav- 
ity of which was unknown before Galileo, they tell us that at the 
creation " God gave to the air its weight, and to the waters, 
their just measure" (Job xxviii. 25). When they speak of the light, 
they present it to us as an element independent of the sun, and 
as anterior by three epochs, to the period in which that luminary 
was formed. When they speak of the interior state of our globe, 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



519 



they teach us that while its surface gives us bread, beneath, it 
is on fire (Job xxvili. 5). When they speak of the mountains, 
they distinguish them as primary and secondary, they represent 
them as heing born, they make them rise, they make them melt 
like wax ; they abase the valleys ; they speak as a geological 
poet of our day would do. " The mountains were lifted up 
(elevated), O Lord ; the valleys were abased (Hebrew, " de- 
scended"), in the place which though hadst assigned them." 
(Ps. civ. 8.) (" Gaussen, Theopneusty," p. 144, 148.) Let the 
Christian, therefore, never fear the scrutiny of science. The 
word and the works of God must ever be in harmony. True 
theology is the interpretation of his word : real science is the in- 
terpretation of his works. In both the divine record is unerring 
truth. In both, alike, the human interpretation not only is liable 
to error, but must often be defective. 

Let these considerations check, at once, the audacity of skep- 
tical philosophy, and the intolerance of religious bigotry. Let 
religion continue, as she has ever been, the patroness of science, 
and science will remain the handmaid of religion. The edicts of 
the Pope have not stopped the revolutions of the earth in its orbit, 
nor the philosophy of Hume erased from our geological strata their 
innumerable miracles. Geology will still date the termination of 
her old formations from the extinct species they contain, and the 
commencement of the newer from the period, when " a creation 
entirely new had succeeded universal decay and death ;" though 
some modern Epicurus should dream of new species springing 
into life " in retired places." The earth will still be heaved by 
its volcanic fires, the moon still present her ragged edges and her 
shattered front, to human observation ; stars will still blaze into 
sudden brightness, and pass away into invisibility ; the mighty 

REVOLUTIONS, ABOVE, AROUND, BENEATH US, Will Still ITlOVe OU 

in their sublime and mysterious progress, towards their destined 
consummation, though man in his ignorance should still exclaim, 
" Since the Fathers fell asleep all things remain as they were 
from the beginning of the creation." Nature will still remain 
with her unfathomable mysteries, and God with his infinite and 
incomprehensible perfections, and man with his boundless aspira- 
tions, his deathless hopes, his inextinguishable conscience, his 
rational and immortal nature. The transient theories of a day, 



520 



THE HARMONY OF REVELATION 



time will destroy : but truth and right are imperishable 

AND ETERNAL. 



Note. — In preparing these discourses for the press, the author 
nas been under the necessity of choosing between the total omission 
of one topic, and such an abbreviation of the whole, as would have 
been injurious to each portion separately, and marred the combined 
impression of them all. He has, with some hesitation, chosen the 
latter alternative, and omitted the discussion in regard to the 
" Mosaic deluge/' This is the less regretted, as the belief of 
other deluges fast and to come, is now a part of the settled 
geologic creed, and therefore leaves that particular historical deluge 
within its own appropriate sphere of historical evidence. How 
complete, decisive, universal, is that historical testimony, no 
well-informed man, needs, at this day, to learn. 



€§i iiffirttltfra nf UttfthHty. 



RET. STUART ROBINSON, 

FRANKFORT, KT 



Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory the 
uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, &c. — Romans, ii. 22, 23. 

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them 
over to a reprobate mind (marg. a mind void of judgment). — Romans ii. 28. 

And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish ; because they 
received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God 
shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. — 2 Thess. ii. 10-11. 

In the two portions of Scripture from which these passages are 
taken — the first referring historically to a state of things then past 
and still existing ; the second prophetically to a state of things then 
future — there is presented a most profound philosophical analysis 
of the origin, progress, and tendencies of a rejection by men of 
God's revelation of himself ; whether as discovered in the original 
impressions with which he has endowed human nature ; in the 
works of creation at large ; or in the teaching of " holy men of 
old, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." The 
origin of their unbelief is referred to an error of the heart rather 
than of the understanding. " They did not like to retain God in 
their knowledge ;" " they received not the love of the truth." With 
the affections of the heart thus hostile to the truth ; given over to 
self-conceit, vanity and presumption, the powers of the intellect 
become darkened. As a natural consequence, presuming to dive 
into " the deep things of God," they devise low and unworthy con- 
ceptions of his character and worship. As a consequence again of a 
degraded theology and " a mind void of judgment," the principles 
of morals are subverted and the passions of men left to run riot in 
the practice of every crime that can disgrace humanity. And 
then, under the combined influence of a debasing theology and a 
corrupt morality, the understanding itself becomes enfeebled and 
drivelling ; its logical faculties perverted, and its perceptions blunt- 
ed so as to become incapable of distinguishing between truth and 
falsehood. As they would not believe when they ought, they are 
left to belie 'e when they ought not. While vainly contemning 



524 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



the credulity which humbly receives and believes the truth; and 
glorying in their own imagined Pyrrhonism ; they are given over 
— not to the utter incredulity which can believe nothing, but on 
the contrary, to the incorrigible and stupid credulity which can 
" believe a lie." 

It is the most remarkable feature of this description of infidelity, 
that there is ascribed to it the very absurdities w 7 hich it has ever 
been the fashion of infidelity to charge upon believers of the " truth 
as it is in Jesus insomuch that one unacquainted with the au- 
thorship of this portion of Scripture, might well mistake it for the 
jeu d? esprit of some ingenious philosophical essayist retorting upon 
modern skeptics, in cutting satire, the r own charges. And while 
those passages suggest very obviously the particular points of at 
tack against infidelity, they suggest no less obviously, as the gen 
eral method of warfare, the plan of holding the advocates of infi- 
delity responsible for some positive system of faith ; and then 
demanding that they show the consistency of this system with 
itself, with right reason, and with truth. Instead of confining 
themselves to a mere defence of their stronghold, the advocates of 
Christianity should often by a bold and vigorous sally, assail the 
enemy in his lurking-place, and seek to drive him from his " ref- 
uge of lies," with utter and hopeless discomfiture. 

The disadvantages of acting merely on the defensive for Chris- 
tianity, are twofold. In the first place, it relieves infidelity from 
its just responsibility to the laws of logical consistency. It allows 
to infidels the comparatively easy task of pulling down, without 
ever being called upon to build up. But more especially, is this 
method of acting entirely on the defensive unfortunate, in that 
it gives currency to the very erroneous notion that Christianity 
is peculiar for the difficulties that attend faith in its doctrines. 
And the young and unwary, puzzled by the suggestion of myste- 
ries and difficulties in the faith, which in childhood they have 
received upon trust, and captivated by the affectation of superior 
shrewdness and wisdom, with which infidelity sneers at the mys- 
teries of this faith, are seduced from their steadfastness and 
led on step by step, at length niutve shipwreck of their hope. 

It is true, the very title " Infidelity" by which we characterize 
generally the various forms of opposition to Christianity, indicates 
something merely negative. But the denial of the truth of Chris- 
tianity is uniformly connected with some system or other of faith 
with which Christianity is supposed to conflict. Even were it not 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



525 



so, has it ever been shown that by any law of reason, or by any ap- 
pointment of God, one class of philosophers have it as their pecu 
liar office to pull down and to destroy, without ever building up ? 
If there is any obligation on the more learned portion of men to en- 
lighten their fellows, that obligation lies no less upon those who 
reject than upon those who receive Christianity. It is not therefore 
enough to prove Christianity unworthy the credence of men. Es- 
pecially is this not enough on the part of those who have set them- 
selves up as professedly " the wise" — as a class claiming to be the 
philosophers, and the peculiar guardians of the mental and moral 
interests of mankind. 

Adopting the method here suggested by the Apostle, of holding 
infidelity responsible for the reasonableness and consistency of the 
faith for the world which it will substitute instead of Christian- 
ity — and pursuing the general tenor of the topics of animadver- 
sion suggested in his view of the origin and tendencies of infidel- 
ity, I propose to consider : 

I. The difficulties of infidelity in devising a system of theology, 
which shall answer the inquiries and meet the wants of man's 
spiritual nature. 

II. The difficulties of infidelity in devising a system of ethics 
which shall be of purity, force and obligation sufficient to restrain 
and guide man as a social being, and render possible the exist 
ence of civilized society. 

III. The difficulties of infidelity as a logical system — in its ap- 
plication of the laws of evidence to the question of the credibility 
of the gospel ; and in constructing any theory on which to account 
for the phenomena of the present existence of the gospel records 
and the religion founded upon them, faith in which theory does 
not involve the most preposterous credulity. 

These views of the subject comprehend generally the great as 
pects of the question of religion — as a question of theology, what 
man shall believe of God — as a question of ethics, what man 
shall practise toward man — as an existing phenomenon which 
man, as a philosopher, desires to account for. And these three 
aspects of the question embrace particularly the very points on 
which infidelity, both ancient and modern, has assailed Christi- 
anity. The substance of the objections to Christianity relates to 
the unreasonableness of the gospel theology, the impracticability 
of the gospel ethics, and the insufficiency, or logical inconsistency, 
of the gospel evidences. The method of argument here proposed 



526 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



assumes, that if the gospel theology is unworthy of the faith of 
men. then — since some religious faith is necessary to man — infi- 
delity should not only demonstrate the unworthiness of this creed, 
but supply mankind with a more worthy in its stead. If the gos- 
pel ethics are impracticable, infidelity should not only demonstrate 
this, but also — since society must have some system — devise a 
more practical ethics in its stead. If the records of the Christian 
faith and the church founded upon them, have not, as they pro- 
fess to have, their origin in the inspiration of God, and their pres- 
ervation by the providence of God, then infidelity should not only 
demonstrate the negative of this, but give the world some reason- 
able account of so remarkable a phenomena, — admitted on all 
hands to exist. 

Lest, however, the justness of this assumption may not at once 
be clear to the apprehension of any, it may not be improper here 
to illustrate the true state of the question — especially in regard to 
the first and second topics proposed, viz. : The obligation resting 
on those who reject Christianity, to provide some better theology 
and ethics for the guidance of mankind. 

Man is by nature a religious creature, and therefore must have 
a faith and worship of some fashion. Whether reasoning a priori 
from the nature of man, or reasoning from an induction of facts 
in the history of the race, we arrive with equal certainty at the 
conclusion that man must have a religion. It is a truth, patent 
upon the very surface of human nature, that all men have a per- 
ception of moral distinction ; that they judge of actions not only 
as wise and unwise, but as right and wrong ; that they have a 
feeling of complacency in view of right actions, and of ill-desert 
in view of the wrong. This being a matter of consciousness, 
needs no other proof than the statement of it, in order to be be- 
lieved and understood. This being the case, men will be led to 
suspect, if not logically to infer the existence of a Supreme Being, 
who in some manner shall reward the good and punish the evil — 
and thus is derived the idea cf retribution. The point is not 
made here, by any means, that by logical necessity the existence 
of a principle of conscience leads to the conclusion that there is a 
God. This is not necessary to the argument. It is asserted only 
that the impression of a judge of moral actions within the breast 
of man, will very naturally suggest the fear of a Judge above. 
The whisperings of the conscience, if they convince not the un- 
derstanding, will yet impress the imagination with at least a dim 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



527 



conception of some supreme power. In exact accordance with 
this reasoning is the fact that such an impression, constituting a 
religion of some fashion, is found wherever man is found. To 
this fact historians of all ages, and philosophers of all sects bear 
concurrent testimony. The Scythian, the Indian, the Gaul, the 
German, the Briton, as well as the more enlightened Greek and 
Roman of ancient times, conceived of a God the Judge, and of a 
future existence. So in like manner the most uncivilized of 
modern nations, alike with those who are enlightened, agree in 
the common belief of a God, — and, in some fashion or other, of a 
retribution. Ancient philosophers of all schools — Plato, Cicero, 
Aristotle and Seneca unite in testifying that this was the most an- 
cient and universal belief of all ancient nations. And the modern 
skeptical philosophers with equal unanimity declare their belief, 
that in the nature of the case man must have a faith. "Man," 
says Shaftsbury, " is born to religion.''" " Man," says Bolingbroke, 
" is a religious as well as a social creature ; made to know and 
adore his Creator, to discover and obey his will." " If," says Adam 
Smith, the friend of Mr. Hume, "if we consult our natural senti- 
ments we are apt to fear that vice is worthy of punishment. The 
doctrines of revelation coincide in every respect with the original 
anticipations of nature." 

Now in this admitted necessity of some religion for mankind 
arises the first of the difficulties of infidelity. It is clear that a 
mere negative of the gospel — nay, even a demonstration of the 
absurdity of the gospel, by no means finishes this question. The 
solemn fact of retribution, lying far back in human consciousness, 
is affected by no preliminary hypothesis as to the truth of Chris- 
tianity. The elements of that hell from which the gospel pro- 
poses to rescue men, lie back beyond the question of the gospel, 
which proposes only to be a remedy for an evil known to exist 
among the children of men. What then, though we have proved 
the gospel to be a fable? Still human existence is no fable; — 
nor are its fears of retribution a fable. What though we have 
proven the improbability of the Gospel Judgment to come ? We 
have still not quieted the anxieties and the dread which guilt 
ever generates in the soul ; nor have we done anything to check 
that flow of sorrow which human experience avers must ever 
follow after guilt. If man " dieth not as the brute dieth" — if, as 
reason would lead us to suspect, the life that now is, constitutes 
but the infancy of an eternal manhood in the life which is to 



528 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



come — if human nature in any or all of its essential attributes is 
to inhabit eternity — then most clearly the duty of philosophers is 
not fully discharged to their race, even when they have demol- 
ished the entire fabric of Christianity, or exposed what they be- 
lieve to be the shallow empiricism of the gospel prescription for 
the spiritual malady of the race. The hell which symbolizes 
that malady is no invention of the gospel theology. It exists 
logically anterior to the coming of the gospel, and would still 
exist even though the memory of the gospel were blotted from 
the earth. However you may jeer at the empiricism which pro- 
fesses to control the stealthy tread of " the pestilence that walketh 
in darkness ;" yet when your jeers have told with their fullest 
effect, in overwhelming with contempt the quackery, they have 
done nothing toward staying the march of the destroyer, or pro- 
tecting you from its deadly breath. And so the jeer, the sarcasm, 
the contempt, the sophistry, — nay. though it be the argument — 
which destroys all faith in the gospel, affects not in the least the 
question of retribution for sin, whose existence is an admitted 
fact, independent of the remedy for it. The gospel professes to 
come only as a heaven-devised remedy for the malady of conscious 
guilt, and proclaims its author as the heaven-descended physi- 
cian, able to rescue from a death whose hand is already felt by 
every soul that feels at all, to be paralyzing all the energies of 
the spiritual existence. If the skepticism which scoffs at the 
gospel, have found another and a better remedy for the known 
and felt calamity of our race, then the shafts of its wit are well 
and wisely aimed. If it have found some "other name under 
heaven given amongst men whereby they may be saved'' — then 
it is all well enough. Yet let the votaries of skepticism re- 
member that by the necessity of the case, a mere barren negation, 
however plausible, will not meet the case. It satisfies no yearn- 
ing of the human heart. It stills not those wailings of terror and 
dread, which sin causes ever to echo in the chambers of the soul. 
It can soothe no trouble of the conscience, for it covers not up the 
dread vision of retribution which gleams upon every reflective 
spirit. 

Why then shall skepticism waste its energies to destroy the 
hopes of the gospel, which, even though illusive, can possibly do 
no injury to a race already doomed and hopeless ? Why, in the 
mere wantonness of conscious logical strength, dash in pieces the 
beautiful creation of fancy, when as yet reason has nothing more 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



529 



substantial to substitute in its stead ? Though the vision of dis- 
tant water, which oft delights the fancy of the famishing emigrant 
over the great western desert, be but a mere optical illusion ; yet 
if he is beyond all hope of any real slaking of his burning thirst, 
the illusion is harmless as it is delightful. Grant then that the 
landscape of lake, or running stream and overhanging shade 
which gleams a paradise before his enraptured sight, is all the 
trick of the deceptive mirage which will ever recede before him 
and vanish at last into thin air ; still it is no high act of benevo- 
lence to inflict upon his eager though jaded spirit a display of your 
superior knowledge of meteorology in demonstrating that all is 
false and unreal. If there is yet hope for him — if in some other 
quarter you have found a spring — nay, even a stagnant pool, at 
which the intense cravings of his thirst may be satiated ; then 
indeed spare not ; — in mercy to him dash in pieces the vain de- 
ception, that he waste not his little remaining energy in pursuit 
of a phantom. But if you have no other hope to set before him, 
and his doom is inevitable, then in mercy let him go on un- 
deceived. As nature fails — as one after another the springs of 
life dry up, let the beautiful illusion still feast his imagination ; 
as reason now totters on her throne and the wild dreams of de- 
lirium rush thick upon him, let them be pleasant dreams of 
bliss ; — let him lave his soul in the cooling delusion, till the eye, 
glazed in death, heed no longer the glare of the fiery sun ; and 
the cries of his thirsty appetite have been hushed forever. Why 
come to torment him with your prosy disquisitions of the reflec- 
tion and refraction of the atmosphere, as though begrudging him 
the single moment of bliss which relieves the inevitable horrors of 
his condition? As well should a physician, in order to settle a 
difference of opinion between himself and a dying patient, under- 
take by an ante-mortem demonstration, by the scalpel, to correct 
the error of his patient, and establish his own superior judgment 
in the diagnosis of disease. 

It is not unimportant to have multiplied illustrations on this 
topic ; since this not only is the hinge on which this controversy 
in great part turns, but the faith of thousands has become un- 
settled, from this very error of supposing it enough to discredit 
Christianity, that difficulties may be suggested in regard to it. 

If then man must have a religion, and if, in the opinion of 
skepticism, Christianity is not the system to meet his wants, let 
skepticism devise some other scheme. Has this been done ? It is 

34 



530 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



not intended here to argue in the abstract, the question o: ; the pos- 
sibility or impossibility of any satisfactory scheme of religion in- 
dependent of a revelation ; but simply as a matter of fact and 
history to reason from what has been done. If, after having em- 
ployed the highest powers of a long line of philosophers, embra- 
cing the most gifted of the race, during a period of five thousand 
years, the problem of a religion for mankind has not yet been 
solved, it is very safe to infer that it cannot be done. I propose 
therefore to take a comprehensive and summary view of the an- 
swers which have been given by the most enlightened of those who 
have not known, or knowing, have rejected Christianity, to the 
inquiries which the spiritual constitution of man naturally prompts 
him to make in regard to his relation to God, and his own future 
destiny. 

The question, "What is man to believe concerning God?" and 
" What duty does God require of man ?" is one which, in the na- 
ture of the case, must interest every human being, who has ever 
reflected at all. A rational being with the mementoes of the eva- 
nescence of his present existence everywhere around him, and with 
the sense of ill-desert for wrong-doing ever within him, must 
naturally ask, whither am I going ? Is the present life all of my 
existence? and shall this thinking, feeling principle within me 
perish with the body? or reaches it onward to another life? If 
so, then what is the nature of that life to come ? What relation 
has this present to the future life? Shall that be a life of joy or 
sorrow ? or shall it be a mere abstract existence incapable of any 
of the sensations of pain or pleasure that belong to the present? 
Does the relation I sustain to the being who hath made all 
things — and of whom I conceive, not only as a Maker and a 
Father, but as a Judge — affect the question of my future life? If 
so, is he favorable or hostile to my happiness? If not favorable, 
how may he be appeased? and on what conditions will he pass over 
guilt? To all such questions the gospel offers a full and direct 
answer, in terms which the most ignorant may comprehend. Its 
answer in general is — the Judge has made known his will and 
declared the terms of pardon. An atonement for sin has been 
made, by which is furnished a reason for which he can without 
derogating from that purity and justice, which you ascribe to him, 
regard with favor even creatures who have sinned. There is a 
future life, to which the present is but a preparatory state, and, in 
that life, eternal joy or eternal sorrow shall be the destiny of every 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



531 



man, according as he may have received or rejected the offer 
of mercy. 

Now to this answer infidelity demurs on various grounds ; either 
that there ooidd have been no such revelation from heaven, or if 
so, there is no sufficient evidence that it has been made ; for how- 
ever strong the testimony in behalf of the Bible as a revelation, 
it is still insufficient to counterpoise the anterior improbability that 
such a revelation should be made, the incredibleness of its state- 
ment of facts, and the insuperable difficulties which reason finds 
attending its doctrines. 

We turn then, for a more rational and satisfactory answer to the 
inquiries of the human soul, to the teachings of philosophy, and 
in order to deal fairly and candidly with the system of skepticism, 
select only from the purest and noblest of its teachers. Let us, 
in imagination, then, follow some earnest and thoughtful inquirer 
in search of a religion which shall satisfy the wants of his nature, 
resolved in the spirit of a true eclecticism to gather from the best 
lights of every age. 

It has been a favorite topic of declamation with our skeptics to 
exhibit the lofty heights of theoretical and practical religion to 
which the ancients attained without the aid of Christianity, as an 
evidence of what may be done in the way of choosing a religion of 
nature for men. Voltaire goes so far as to claim for ancient philoso- 
phy, not only the glory of originating a theory of religion superior 
in some respects to Christ's, but speaks in most complimentary 
terms of the pagan religion of antiquity as "containing a morality 
common to all men of all ages and places ; and festivals which 
were no more than times of rejoicing, which could do no injury to 
mankind or to the morality of their votaries." It will be but fair 
then to allow our inquirer the advantage of the light to be ob- 
tained from the ancient as well as the modern philosophy. 

Let our inquirer turn first then to the ancients with the inquiry, 
"What of God?" Tradition back to the remotest time instructs 
him that there is such a being to be reverenced. He is not now 
however in search of tradition, but of the c earer and more pro- 
found views of the most philosophic thinkers. "God," answers 
Pythagoras, "is the Universal Mind diffused through all nature; 
and the human soul but a spark stricken off from him as the 
great source of life." " God," answers Anaxagoras (and the an- 
swer is delivered amid the plaudits of his age), " is the Infinite 
Mind, whic i planned the motion and order of all things." 1 God," 



532 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



says Plato, " is the Maker and Father of the universe." But if 
now the inquirer proceed a step farther and ask, what is the nature 
of God? the relation in which God stands to us his creatures? all 
is vague and obscure. Socrates, who speaks most intelligibly of 
all concerning the care and providence of God, seems to conceive 
of him as a mere superior God, with hosts of inferiors through 
whom he administers human affairs. Plato seems to limit his 
omnipotence, and to ascribe a co-ordinate and co-extensive juris- 
diction to an Infinite Spirit of evil, while the various schools repre- 
sent God as hardly a personal Being at all, but a mere principle 
pervading the universe. 

In answer to the still more practical inquiry, Does God ex- 
ercise a providence over the affairs of men? — a question which 
according to Cicero, lies at the foundation of all religion — the ut- 
terances of ancient philosophy are still more vague and confused. 
Setting aside the scoffing of Epicurus, who banished God from 
any concern with the world which he has made, Cicero himself, 
who had the advantage of all previous speculations, and who 
wrote a treatise of the nature of God, regards the question of a 
Providence as a matter yet unadjudicated. And even Pliny laughs 
at the absurdity of supposing, that Divinity should take upon him- 
self so troublesome a ministry as the care of human affairs. 
Among those even who maintained the doctrine of a Providence, 
as Epictetus informs us, it was a matter of high dispute, whether 
his care extended only to heavenly things, or also to things 
pertaining to this earth ; and even those who held the latter 
opinion contended for nothing farther than a providence over 
generals, without extending to individuals. According to the 
Stoics — the most virtuous and intelligent of all the sects — God 
himself, in the exercise of this providence, is governed by an iron 
Fate, or Destiny, which controls his actions. 

In reference to the immortality and future destiny of the aoul, 
nothing can be more uncertain and contradictory than the utter- 
ances of the most enlightened writers of antiquity. The notion 
of the immortality of the soul, which they confessed to have been 
the most ancient and universal belief of mankind — so far from 
becoming more definite and certain, with the advance of philoso- 
phj , was really obscured if not entirely subverted. Whole schools, 
as the Cynics and the Epicureans, held that the soul died with the 
body ; and of those who talked most sublimely of the immortality 
of the soul, the larger portion founded their faith on the assump- 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



533 



tion that the soul being an emanation from Divinity, and a por- 
tion of the general soul of the world, shall therefore not perish but 
be "re-absorbed," as Seneca expressed it, "into the ancient ele- 
ments." The very position on which Plato mainly founds his 
celebrated argument, destroys in effect this personal existence of 
the soul after death — "Of necessity," says he, " the soul is an un- 
generated, and therefore an immortal thing." Socrates, notwith- 
standing his elevated and consoling speculation of the nature of the 
soul, declares as the result of all his reflections, " whether a better 
state follows the present is known only to God." Cicero, who, in 
spite of the affectation peculiar to the new Academy — which es- 
chewed all positive opinion — speaks with something of the confi- 
dence of a philosopher in his learned treatises on this subject, 
yet in familiar letters to friends expresses himself doubtfully and 
inconsistently — ofttimes declaring death to be the end of all things. 
Seneca, who undertook the task of administering to the world 
consolation in sorrow, has no higher consolation to offer at the 
death of a friend, than the poor sophism — " aut beatus aut nul- 
lusP 

In short, the noblest utterances of ancient philosophy on the 
whole subject of God, and man's relation to God and a future 
state, so far from enlightening and confirming the popular faith, 
surrounded the conception of God with an obscurity, which in 
effect tended to banish the idea from the popular mind. While they 
seemed to admit the existence of such a Being, they at the same 
time banished him from all direct practical control of the affairs of 
man. Those of them who have made themselves immortal by 
their philosophical demonstrations of the immortality of the soul, 
in effect obscured and subverted the popular faith in this doctrine. 
On the subject of a future retribution, the very same authors pro- 
mulgated the most opposite opinions. Nay, Plato himself, the 
great expounder^ of the theory of retribution, absolutely rejected 
this notion as a practical faith for the people merely on the ground 
of political inexpediency. 

Such then are the elements of the great results of ancient teach- 
ing, out of which must be framed a system of faith, which shall 
meet the wants of humanity, in lieu of the system of the gospel 
which infidelity proposes to reject. Is there anything here which 
a true philosopher would be willing to substitute in the popular 
mind, for the sublime and simple faith of the gospel, which teaches 
one God, a Father and Ruler — one Saviour — God manifest in the 



534 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



flesh — one Divine Spirit which moves upon the soul — one kind 
Providence which numbers even the hairs of our head — a life 
after the death of the body which shall rectify the inequalities of the 
life that now is ; — and a hope of abiding in his " presence where 
there is fulness of joy, and at his right hand where there are 
pleasures for evermore." 

Nay, the ancient philosophers themselves were far from desir- 
ing to substitute their own spec alations for the faith of the 
masses, even absurd and inconsistent as they held that faith to be. 
They universally answered the question, "How is God to be 
worshipped?" by referring men to the religion of their country, 
their oracles and priests. Many of the most eminent of them, as 
Plato, purposely veiled their instructions in an obscurity impene- 
trable to ordinary thinkers. Cicero held it to be absolutely un- 
lawful to declare the mysteries of the Supreme God to the vulgar. 
And however just might have been their views of religion, this 
could not in the nature of the case have furnished mankind with 
a religion. It might easily be shown, if time permitted, that a re- 
ligious faith can never found itself on mere speculations, however 
just. The teacher of religion must teach " by authority, and not 
as the scribes." Having no authority to enforce their instructions, 
the people at large concerned themselves little about their pro- 
found speculations. Some authority from heaven is essential to 
enforce the attention of men. It is evident, moreover, that the 
mere reasonings of philosophy, however just, cannot offer no 
practical ground of religious consolation and hope. They may 
amuse the light-hearted students of the Academy, but not console 
the sorrow-stricken and conscience-stricken inhabitant of a world 
of sin. The spirit disappointed with the vanities of life — the 
heart broken at the sepulchre of some heart-idol — the soul filled 
with dismay at the stern approach of death, are not in a frame 
to follow out the subtleties of philosophy, and comprehend the 
certainty of its conclusions, however just. 

Many of the ancient philosophers themselves, as if conscious 
of this difficulty, never referred inquirers who asked after instruc- 
tion in practical religion, to their own disquisitions. Cicero en- 
joined upon every man to worship God according to the religion 
of his country. Plato, in the Republic, declares that, what God 
Supreme is, and how he is to be woishipped, is best left to the 
Oracle at Delphos. 
Indeed, so far from aiming to recover t le masses from the super- 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



535 



stitions of this popular idolatry, the ancient philosophers, with 
singular insincerity, encouraged their superstitions. It is a noto- 
rious fact, that in the congest between Christianity and idolatry, 
the philosophers were the principal supporters of Paganism. They 
prostituted their genius and learning to make idolatry in all its 
foi •ms respectable. They allegorized the monstrous fables of the 
poets so as to give them a semi-philosophic currency. Indeed, 
they hesitate not to defend even the stupid animal worship of Egypt, 
as containing under an obscure veil the highest wisdom. With 
such proofs before them of the insincerity of their great intellectual 
leaders, no wonder the masses of the people should treat their spec- 
ulations with contempt. Nor was this want of confidence in the 
speculations of philosophy peculiar to the masses of the people. To 
say nothing of the professed skeptics, the new Academy, embracing 
Cicero himself, held nothing to be certain — nothing to be positively 
affirmed. Without any of the affectation of the new Academy, 
Socrates, with true humility, affirmed : " This only I know, that I 
know nothing." All intelligent men complained of the uncertainty 
of all knowledge. Diodorus Siculus openly charged the Greek 
philosophy with leading mankind into perpetual doubt even in 
regard to the plainest truth. It is needless to add that in this 
state of the case, no sincere inquirer could look to this quarter for 
light in the great matter of religion. 

Having thus seen that the ante-Christian philosophers, notwith- 
standing the frequent reference to them in such a tone of triumph, 
offer no relief to the difficulties of infidelity in devising a religion 
for mankind, we now inquire whether the arc^-Christian philos- 
ophers of modern times, though having the advantage of the 
labors of their predecessors, as well as of much light borrowed 
from Christianity itself, have yet, after near 2,000 years, devised 
any system of instruction for those who inquire what man is to 
believe concerning God — what duty God requires, and what des- 
tiny has in store for man? And both because this investigation 
must be very brief, as well as because it is our purpose to allow 
infidelity the advantage of exhibiting only its most enlightened 
and illustrious efforts of reason, I shall confine this view to a few 
of the most remarkable schools of philosophy since the revival of 
learning. What then have those who rejected Christianity as the 
religion for human nature proposed to substitute in its stead ? 

If there be any more rational theory of religion to be found on 
which the soul of man in its natural eagerness to know something 



536 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



of its relation to the universe and its destiny may stay itself, it 
ought certainly to be found here. 

Lord Herbert, with whom the list commences, adn its fully the 
absolute necessity of a religion for men ; and having rejected the 
Christian notion of a revelation from God as unnecessary, boldly 
undertakes to construct a system in its stead. That there is a 
God who is to be worshipped with acts of piety and virtue : that 
there are sins for which if men would be pardoned they must re- 
pent ; and that there are rewards and punishments in a future life ; 
— are the articles of faith, which do in his view constitute a 
creed for a universal religion — sufficient for all the wants of the 
human soul. I cite this creed not only as that which comes his- 
torically first in the series of modern infidelity, and is therefore 
important ; but because also it is in itself a full admission of the 
theory of the whole subject by which it is proposed here to test 
infidelity, to wit: that some faith is necessary for man, and that 
the philosophy which rejects Christianity, is to be held justly re- 
sponsible to furnish man with a religion in its stead. In regard 
to this creed there is time here only to observe, first, that it is 
liable to all the objections which lie against Christianity as a sys- 
tem of dogmatism : secondly, that it is too vague and indefinite to 
answer any practical purpose for the great mass of men : thirdly, 
that it is impossible to prove the certainty of its articles, and there- 
fore it rests on the ground of mere authority — and that the author- 
ity of Herbert, which is at least no higher than that of Christ — 
though Chvist be shown to be a mere man — and lastly, because 
the creed has been in part, if not utterly repudiated, by the greater 
lights who have succeeded Lord Herbert in the work of enlighten- 
ing the world by philosophy. Passing by this mongrel creed which 
has been rejected alike by Christians and philosophers, imagine 
now a man of ordinary intelligence, setting out most devoutly to con- 
sult the several oracles of philosophy which have been set up since 
that period for the guidance of men, asking, what is God? What 
is man's relation to him? What is to be man's destiny after the 
death of the body. Applying first to Bolingbroke, he is told to 
believe " that there is one supreme all-perfect Being — the eternal 
— the original cause of all things and of almighty power. But 
we must not ascribe to him any moral attributes, or deduce 
moral obligations from those attributes; or be guilty of the blas- 
phemy of talking of imitating him. That this God made the 
world at first, and established the laws of the system, but now 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



537 



has no more concern with its affairs — except so far perhaps as 
relates to collective bodies. As to the soul and its destiny — the 
soul is not distinct from the body, and therefore perishes with it. 
While it is of great use to believe the impression of immortality 
and of rewards and punishments hereafter — yet the whole thing 
is a fiction. That finally Reason discovers to man a law of na- 
ture founded in the human system and clear to all mankind." But 
lest the inquirer shall be too curious, he is gravely informed 
not to expect too much. "Theists concur in ascribing to God all 
possible perfections ; yet they will always differ when they descend 
into any detail, and 'pretend to be particular about them, as 
they have always differed in their notions of those perfections. 
Thus the only answer given is in substance, that there is a God 
of all possible perfection, but what those perfections are, is a ques- 
tion of detail about which philosophers differ. That men ought 
to believe, as men, and as a matter of expediency, that the soul is 
immortal, and that there are pains or pleasures in store for it here- 
after, while as philosophers, they must perceive that this faith is 
mere humbug. From Shaftsbury such an inquirer would soon 
turn aside, deterred on the one hand by his tone of dogmatic con- 
tempt, and on the other by his declaration that all religious faith, 
beyond belief in the existence of God, is unnecessary. Nor will 
he be disposed to tarry long among the disciples of the school of 
French materialism, who denying " angel or spirit" — under the 
influence of a philosophy which makes matter the source and ori- 
gin of all thought — with Voltaire doubts the existence of God 
himself, and utterly repudiates immortality for man — or with 
D'Alembert declares a God unnecessary. From such philosophy 
he shrinks back, as doing violence to the noblest impulses and 
instincts of his nature. 

Imagine then an ordinary, though sincere and earnest mind, 
coming at length upon the "bristling formulas of the absolute" 
among the lofty-soaring idealists of modern Germany, where he 
finds a whole empire concentred upon the investigation of three 
problems — The existence of God and his nature — The universe 
■ — The freedom and destiny of the human soul. He inquires first 
of Kant, and receives for answer in substance — Man has a con- 
ception of God — yet scientifically speaking, this conception can- 
not be regarded as anything else than the generalizing power of 
our own reason personified. Of course, he inquires here no further ; 
for though he still feels eager for light on the subject of God and 



538 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



the soul, he is dismissed to consult the "categorical imperative." 
and while he is assured that the answer of that oracle will declare 
to him the three truths — the existence of God, the liberty of man, 
And the immortality of the soul — yet no light whatever dawns 
upon his conscience, as to how from this existence of a God and 
the immortality of the soul to infer his relation to God as happy 
or unhappy forever. He turns now to Fichte: "You ask of God," 
says the philosopher, we have no conception of him save as 
the subject of thought, conceived of as absolute ; all that we see 
in looking out upon the universe is the reflex of our own activity 
— the objectified laws of our own being. The "I" is the only 
object in the universe. " Self" is the absolute principle of all phi- 
losophy. "I" am the Creator of the universe. "I make it to 
realize my own self-development. The thinking of the mind is 
the active existence of God ; so that man and God are identical. 
I then am God." With what horror will our plain inquirer turn 
from this — to him at least — unintelligible jargon? We may well 
imagine him to exclaim, " Is philosophy thus after attaining its 
sublimest heights, recurring again to the monstrous idolatry of 
ancient Paganism ?" — " Changing the glory of the incorruptible 
God into an image like unto corruptible man ?" " I," a man — am 
God? " The thinking mind is his active existence?" Then the 
philosopher who thinks thus sublimely is the highest of all devel- 
opments of God ! Nay, is not this conception worse than the an- 
cient Paganism? For though that made man God, yet it chose 
the highest conception and attribute of man. In Jupiter it wor- 
shipped power — in Apollo, manly strength and beauty — in Venus 
the concentred charms of woman ! But w 7 e, after the advance 
of so many ages of improvement, must worship as our highest 
form of God, a little pipe-smoking high-Dutch philosopher ! In 
contempt he turns next to Schelling as the antagonist of Fichte 
and of more " spiritual" views. Here he is told that before and 
independent of the existence of the wor?d, God is the undeveloped, 
impersonal, absolute essence from which all things proceed, but 
tending to personality in the production of the universe. Still 
more puzzled, he turns to Hegel and is told, "God is a mere 
process, ever unfolding, realizing himself in the human conscious- 
ness. God is the dialectic process of thought. In another aspect 
God is nature coming to self-consciousness — the absolute idea. 
Hence he exists only in knowledge. Therefore he can exist only 
in man. Or by a "\other process assuming the truth which is ob- 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



539 



vious, that "something and nothing are the same" — then God is 
nothing. Our inquirer, though still more puzzled, has at last this 
consolation, that here at length are two philosophers for once in- 
finitely near an agreement. Rousseau complained that he found 
no two philosophers ever to agree, but that each one constituted a 
sect to himself. Here, however, are two between whom the dif- 
ference is " the mere ghost of a departed quantity." One works 
out the conclusion, that the very highest development of God is 
a high-Dutch philosopher — the other decides, in infinitely close ap- 
proximation to this, that God is nothing at all. 

Or perhaps, now attracted by the imposing title of Eclecticism 
assumed by the more modern French philosophy, and imagining 
that here is truth in the grand collection of all the good things of 
all systems, he turns toward this quarter his inquiries, and in an- 
swer to the question, what we are to believe concerning God? he 
is told that God is the spontaneous Reason, the first and last prin- 
ciple of all things. Reason is literally a universal revelation. It 
is the mediator between God and man. It is the very "word 
made flesh." God thus everywhere present, returns to self-con- 
sciousness in man. In short, the divine nature is a simple Pan- 
theism. I need not refer to other instances of the French school ; 
for whatever variations and controversies the various sects may 
have had among themselves, all alike are characterized by their 
scoffs at all veneration for a personal Divine Being — and by their 
rejection of almost every idea of spiritual duty — and by substi- 
tuting the mere vague idea of nature for the living God. Though 
the revolutions in French philosophy have been both as numerous 
and as remarkable as the revolutions of French politics, the results 
of them have been as far from promoting real truth, as have the 
political revolutions of promoting real personal and civil freedom. 

Or if he turn away in disgust from these highest developments 
of philosophy in Europe, and seek with fond hope some light from 
the more practical labors of American thinkers — here too, to his 
surprise, he finds among those " professing themselves to be wise" 
the same dim and indefinite conceptions of the whole subject. 
In their effort to relieve Christianity — for which they profess the 
highest regard — from the incumbrances of superstition, they have 
gone from step to step in the work of improving tteir systems of 
"Rational Christianity" until, with singular diversity of view, 
they have propounded a jargon of strange conceits concerning 
God and th 3 soul of man, which has all the wildness and extra*- 



540 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



agance of the German which it imitates, without any of the dia- 
lectic acuteness and profuse learning which saves the German 
from utter contempt. 

We make our inquiry of this oracle for some comprehensible 
and consistent truth concerning God with the less confidence, for 
that some of its priests give us notice in advance that in their 
esteem " consistency is no jewel ;" — nor do they give in to the 
vulgar delusion that to make one's self understood is at all praise- 
worthy. "A foolish consistency," says Mr. Emerson, "is the 
hobgoblin of little minds. With consistency a great soul has 
nothing to do." " To be great is to be misunderstood. Socrates, 
Jesus, and Luther, were all misunderstood." Accordingly we 
find these marks of greatness in all their utterances concerning 
God and the duty man owes to God. An emasculated Christian 
philosophy, falsely so called, pipes ever in romance of "God in 
the air," — in the hills — in the canvass and pencil of the painter. 
Whether God is a personal being, or the mere substratum of all 
things, seems not yet " understood." As to any duty which we 
owe to God, or with what affections of heart we shall worship, — 
these are obsolete ideas. " Purity of heart and the law of gravi- 
tation will yet be found to be identical." As to worship — "All 
nature is a temple of worship ; and he who produceth any phe- 
nomena in nature is a true worshipper of God. "Laborare est 
orare." Work is worship. " All true work is sacred ; in all true 
work, were it but true hand labor, there is something of divine- 
ness."* The world had heard before of 'the "dignity of labor ;" 
and orators and poets had in figures of speech ascribed a sort of 
divinity to the labor of man, when contemplating it as harness- 
ing up the lightning to run an express over continents ; or as 
annihilating time and space by the agency of steam ; or even in 
compelling the earth, by her mysterious processes, to yield the 
fruits which fill man's garners. But it will hardly be a doctrine 
" understood," much less felt to be in accordance with the feelings 
of a sincere inquirer after God, that mere bodily, or even mental 
toil, is the fittest worship he can offer the Creator and Father of 
all. Nor will such a man be likely to perceive the " consistency" 
of holding that "labor is worship" with the fact, that while in- 
deed labor not only elevates and dignifies man, and supplies the 
wants of the needy, yet it is labor also, which moulds the false 
keys, and forges tli3 false bill, and fills the world with base and 

* Carlyle. 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



541 



deceitful wares ; — no very acceptable acts of worship surely, to a 
God of purity and justice. 

But whilst the developments of modern skepticism have been 
chiefly in the direction of a transcendentalism which professes to 
seek only more "spiritual" views; and claims to have published 
a new and improved edition of Christianity, far more profound 
and spiritual than the old; there has grown up side by side with 
this form of infidelity, another form more dangerous because 
more congenial with the tendencies of the age, and more palpable 
to the perception and comprehension of ordinary men. As a con- 
sequence of the remarkable extensions of the facts of physical 
science and of the applications of powerful and far-reaching 
generalizations to these facts when discovered, certain impulsive 
and ill-balanced minds, as in all periods of great mental excite- 
ment, seized with a wild fanaticism of science, and overleaping 
the barriers which reason and nature have set to limit the 
progress of human knowledge, have devised a sort of Religion of 
Science, in the character of whose Divinity the physical sciences 
are very strongly represented. One of these sects renders its 
religious homage to a God who appears to be conceived of, as an 
Almighty inventor and machinist, who having devised and put 
in motion a mere physical universe, has retired to a distance; 
and as from some infinite eminence, contemplates with eternal 
complacency the smocthly moving wheel-work. Another sect 
advancing as they suppose a degree or two higher, seem to con- 
ceive of God as of some great self-absorbed mathematical pro- 
fessor, forever establishing the great laws of physics, and super- 
intending their practical operation in the physical universe. 
Whilst a third sect, holding it to be by no means a sufficiently 
exalted and sublime view of the nature of Divinity, to attribute 
to him any present concern with such trifles, conceive of him, as 
having merely acted at first in some past eternity, and glorified 
himself in giving its first impulse to the laws of nature, and then 
retired to await the development of these laws in the production 
of the physical universe ; — as some ancient capitalist having in- 
vested his means in productive stocks, retires at his ease to con- 
template with ever-increasing pleasure the development of an 
ever-accumulating wealth. All these views alike banish God 
practically from the universe. They with mock reverence exalt 
him to a throne; — but it is a throne shorn of its glory in a soli- 
tary and silent eternity. They profess most piously to believe in 



542 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



Gou's existence, while the attributes of the existence which they 
asciibe to him, make it practically no existence at all. So far as 
relates to the character of that Being in whom man as a moral 
creature feels any interest ; — so far as concerns Religion in the 
sense of something that is to enlighten the understanding, relieve 
the conscience, and elevate the moral nature ; — this philosophy 
is literally "without God in the world." Indeed, teaching as it 
does that man himself is but the higher "development" of mere 
animalism ; — that originating at first in some fortuitous chemical 
experiment in which electric currents passing through matter 
have somehow organized an animalcidum ; — that thence start- 
ing in an infinite progress of transmigration, the animalculum 
becomes first a reptile — then the reptile a four-footed beast — and 
then the four-footed beast an ape — then the ape a man — then 
the man an Aristotle, a Bacon, a Laplace or a Newton ; — this 
philosophy needs no God for its man in this life, nor any im- 
mortality for him in a life to come. 

But let this suffice. It would be wearisome to detail the almost 
infinite catalogue of systems of minor note, — and profitless as 
wearisome. Nor need we care to exercise the privilege which the 
laws of war would justify, and in imitation of infidelity when 
attacking Christianity, array against our adversaries the fooleries 
of every insignificant skeptical sect that has burlesqued the name 
of infidelity. We have so far, in this search for a theory of re- 
ligion to substitute for Christianity, endeavored to give infidelity 
the advantage of its best and highest efforts, unembarrassed by 
the follies of confessed failures. And notwithstanding this, the 
very mention of anything like unity as essential to any article of 
religion, is the keenest satire on skepticism. We have a right to 
demand, however, what creed can be gathered from this mass of 
opinions? If we are to select one, which is the true one ? If 
we become Eclectics and select from all, on what principle make 
the selection ? who is able to do it 7 We have a right to ask the 
question — and from us, it comes with infinite force and emphasis. 
Who is right, of all these innumerable sects of philosophy ? How 
is the world to believe you, before you have first made at least 
some show of agreement among yourselves? Christians have 
drawn out the teachings of their religion into creeds — logical and 
consistent articles of faith — and with all their apparent diversity 
of opinion on other topics they at least must be admitted to agree 
on the fundamental points — of God — His relation to man — and 



THE I IFFICTJLTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



543 



the destiny of the human soul. Let us see then in brief what 
sort of a creed on these vital topics we can glean from the phi- 
losophy on which infidelity relies instead of inspiration. Yolney, 
the priest of Philosophism, pretended in imitation of Christians 
to form into a catechism the articles of infidel belief. We but 
follow a high example, therefore, in the endeavor to condense 
into this form the opinions which we have been considering. 

Ques. "What is God?" Ans. God is a name, the idea to be 
attached to which is not yet definitely determined. Our wisest 
teachers differ ; — some holding that it denotes a mere power 
which first gave impulse to the universe ; others regard the word 
as the name of a spirit that pervades all nature ; others again as 
a mere logical symbol for the abstract and indefinite, ego — the 
infinity of the " I-hood." 

Q,. "Is not God then a Personal Being?" Ans. There have 
been those, both among the ancients and the moderns, who have so 
held. But as the light of modern philosophy has guided men 
into higher regions of speculation, this notion is becoming obsolete 
and left to the unscientific and superstitious vulgar — yet it must 
be confessed that some of our wisest men have earnestly held it. 

Q,. Does God concern himself with human affairs ? Ans. This 
is a matter of speculative opinion. Some of our greatest teachers 
have held that chance directs all things. Others hold that Fato 
and Destiny rule the universe. Many, however, have argued 
most ingeniously for a rational jurisdiction of Providence. Of 
this class again, some hold the Providence to extend only to great 
affairs, while others contend that if Providence control not the 
small affairs, He cannot possibly control the greater. Some con- 
ceive of this jurisdiction as exercised personally, but most of the 
modern great men regard it un philosophical to hold to any Provi- 
dence, exercised in any other manner than through the agency of 
laws established from the very first. 

Q,. What of the human soul and its existence after this life ? 
Ans. This is a merely speculative matter concerning which wise 
men must necessarily differ. The simplest theory on this subject, 
and that which is attended with the least difficulty, is that there 
is no soul. In this opinion, too, men of the most opposite philos- 
ophy, as the Materialists and Transcendentalists, seem in effect 
to agree. Another view of the subject perhaps equally simple, is 
that the question itself is one beyond the pale of true Philosophy. 
Thus one of our great lights has said, "The momen the doctrine 



544 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



of immortality is separately taught, man is already fallen. No 
inspired man ever condescends to these evidences."* Yet it must be 
admitted that the most refined and subtle of the doctors in past 
times have taught that man has a soul, and that this soul isperhaps 
immortal. As to the relation of the future to the present, there is 
no certain opinion — nor can there be, owing to the uncertainty as 
to the nature of the soul. The prevailing tendency of opinion, 
however, is at present in an opposite direction from the views of 
the last age. Then the soul was conceived of as but the central 
point of acuteness and sensibility in a congeries of organs ; its im- 
pulses of good and evil, were supposed to be secretions of the gan- 
glia and the brain ; and Cabanis demonstrated by the scalpel the 
process by which the vibrations of the nervous system were trans- 
formed into thought and emotion. At present the inclination of 
philosophy is rather to regard the term "soul" as a figure of speech 
— the representative of a popular " myth," and though spoken of 
by the world at large as a real existence, the term as used by the 
more eminent philosophers denotes the mere allegorical drapery 
of an imaginary idea ! 

Such would be a specimen of the modern catechism of reason. 
Perhaps however the very conception of such a formula will be 
treated with disdain, as an antiquated and obsolete fashion of 
giving expression to religious faith ; as restraining free inquiry in 
an age of "progress ;" and as tending to trammel and embarrass 
the efforts of reason to enlighten mankind. If then we may not 
require of Infidelity such a " Confession of Faith" — drawn out into 
formal propositions from its sources of knowledge, — we may at 
least ask for the "Bible" of reason. Imagine then, that, — in a man- 
ner analogous to the collection into one volume of the writings of 
some thirty different authors of different eras, which Christians 
reverence as the revelation from God and the source of all their 
formulas of Faith, we have collected into one volume the theo- 
logical teachings of the several philosophers who have united in 
rejecting Christianity. And in order to give Infidelity every possi- 
ble advantage in the comparison, and the least possible embarrass- 
ment on the score of consistency, we will not demand of it any 
" Old Testament" in writings of an ancient era of civilization. Give 
us a " New Testament" embracing the modern golden era of philoso- 
phy ; — a volume for the guidance of the world in theology embracing 
only the last and highest results of the speculations of a thousand 

* Emerson. 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 545 

years. Such a volume would have the doctors of the earlier En- 
glish and French schools of philosophy for its "Evangelists;" the 
exploits of the French revolutionary savans for its "Acts of the 
Apostles ;" — the disquisitions of the German idealists and ration- 
alists for its ''Epistles" — and the mystic visions of French and Amer- 
ican Eclectic transcendentalists for its final " Revelation." Provide 
us with such a volume, and we are then placed upon a just footing 
for a comparison between the revelation of faith and the revela 
tion of reason. Skeptical criticism has made itself extremely busy 
with microscopic search after the " discrepancies" between the 
several writers of the Christian volume. But let skeptical criticism 
now try its ingenuity in finding the "coincidences" between the 
several writers of this " Bible" of reason. Let it reconcile Her- 
bert declaring the existence of a personal God, possessed of moral 
attributes which are the grounds of all religion, with Bolingbroke 
denying the possibility of knowing their attributes, or with Vol- 
taire doubting God's very existence, or D'Alembert asserting that 
God is unnecessary. Let it seek for the coincidences between 
Shaftesbury proclaiming the existence of a personal God as a first 
and necessary truth, and Spinoza declaring God to be simply the 
substratum of all existence ; or Fichte denying any active exist- 
ence of a God beyond the limits of the human soul ; or Hegel 
announcing God is nothing; or Cousin answering God is every- 
thing ! Let it harmonize the schools which teach a Providence 
and an immortality, with the schools which repudiate a Provi- 
dence and proclaim death to be an eternal sleep ! If the canons 
of judgment which skepticism has applied to the investigation of 
Christianity be just, then the application of these canons to the 
system of unbelief must be equally just. Tried by the rule that 
truth is unity and ever consistent with itself, what is the w 7 orld to 
think of a theology that both affirms and denies absolutely the 
existence of God ; that affirms now his personal, and now an im- 
personal existence ; that affirms and denies the immateriality and 
immortality of the soul, and that both affirms and denies every 
point relating to either the responsibility or the great end and pur- 
pose of the present life? 

If these several pictures shall have the air of a caricature, the 
philosophers themselves are to blame for it. Their opinions are 
fairly stated ; and if a mere juxtaposition of their several opinions 
expose the absurdity of them, it but exposes at the same time the 
effrontery of the men who would set up their discordant opinions in 

35 



516 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



opposition to the sublime unity of that wonderful volume, which 
though embracing the writings of men of every variety of charac- 
ter, genius and acquirement, living in every different historical era 
through a period of fifteen hundred years, yet all teach the same 
God — the same providence of God — the same method of securing 
God's favor — the same theory of the human soul, and the same 
immortal destiny of the soul after the present life. 

Well said Rousseau of his infidel brethren, " I have consulted 
our philosophers — I have read their books — I have examined their 
opinions. I find them all proud, positive and dogmatic, even in 
their pretended skepticism ; — knowing everything and proving 
nothing, and ridiculing one another. If you count the number of 
them, each one is reduced to himself ; they never unite but to dis- 
pute." 

We have confined the argument as to the ability of Infidelity to 
devise a theology for the world, to what has yet been done. It 
might easily be shown if time permitted, that this is in the nature 
of the case the best that can be done. The infinite confusion of 
opinions which has been exhibited, arises not from the mere idio- 
syncrasies of individual minds, who, in spite of a true philosophy, 
nave run into these errors and contradictions in the application of 
the system. They are, all of them, the natural and logical result 
of the very first principles of Infidelity ; and are the conclusions 
at which variously constituted minds must arrive by logical neces- 
sity, when once they have adopted the peculiar stand-point from 
which Infidelity views the philosophy of religion. The fundamental 
controversy between the advocates and the impugners of revelation 
is as to the nature of the inquiry concerning religion. Is religion 
a question of fact or a question of reason ? Christianity regards 
religion as a matter of fact ; its doctrines, as revealed facts ; its 
evidences the occurrence of facts, which combine with the charac- 
ter of the truths revealed to prove its promulgators to have been 
God-sent men authorized of God to declare his will. Every form 
of philosophic unbelief, on the contrary, proceeds upon the assump- 
tion, in some form or other, that religion is a question of reason — 
resting upon the axioms and deductions of the understanding, or 
upon the spontaneous impressions and impulses of the human soul. 
Thus says Mr. Emerson in a tone of complaint : " The position 
men have given to Jesus is a position of authority. The Faith 
that stands upon authority is not Faith." Now viewing the 
whole matter of religion from this wrong siand-point, no othei 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



547 



consequence can follow than the endless contradictions and absur- 
dities here presented. For in all these antichristian systems alike, 
there is the omission of one of the fundamental elements of hu- 
manity in the very first announcement of the conditions of the 
problem of humanity ; and as a matter of course all the subse- 
quent processes of reasoning, however just and ingenious, are 
unavailing to work out any definite and satisfactory conclusion. 
To use a simple and familiar illustration, the equations given are 
less than the unknown quantities whose values it is the object of 
the reasoning to educe. Hence, however various the starting- 
points of the several modern methods of metaphysical research: 
whether, as one school declares, the starting-point be the material, 
finite universe ; or, as another declares, the finite conscious self ; 
or, as a third, the infinite absolute: — however diverse the fashion 
of reasoning, whether empirical transcendental, ideal subjective, 
ideal objective, or ideal absolute ; and however wide and bridge- 
less the gulf between the resulting systems of the universe, con- 
structed in these several methods ; — all of them alike having failed 
to recognize one of the fundamental elements of the problem, of 
necessity fail to meet the practical wants of man, — as a being 
instinctively conscious of his relation to some judge supreme, and 
of ill-desert in that relation. And in no portion of human history 
is there to be found a more forcible evidence of the fact that " they 
did not like to retain God in their knowledge," than in that por- 
tion which details the successive and contradictory phases, and 
the worse than Babel confusion of tongues of modern speculative 
philosophy; — all growing chiefly out of the refusal of all parties 
alike to admit a revelation from God as one of the objective ])he- 
nomena, and the felt want of some such revelation as one of the 
subjective facts of human nature. It will not fail to suggest itself 
as a singular fact to any reflective student, on a survey of the 
whole field of speculative philosophy, all covered now with the 
wrecks of a hundred exploded systems ; that any one of the 
various methods of constructing a theorem of the universe — 
whether the materialistic, the ideal, or the absolute, — might have 
satisfactorily explained all the phenomena of the universe, if the 
fact of a Christian revelation had in good faith been admitted as 
one of the original elements of such theory, and had been allowed 
its just influence in modifying the theory in the progress of its con- 
struction. With the admission of this fact, and the light cast by it 
upon the spiiitual nature and destiny of man, almost any form 



548 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDEL! TY. 



even of the earlier English or French materialism would have 
been adequate to account for all the phenomena of humanity and 
of the universe. With this fact and its consequences fully admit- 
ted, it matters very little whether we adopt as a stand-point " the 
me" (subjective self) of Fichte, or the " not-me" (objective nature) 
of Schelling, or the absolute idealism of Hegel, in our philosophical 
system. In either case the light derived, and the limitations 
imposed by this admission of an objective revelation and a corre- 
sponding subjective spiritual element in humanity, would furnish 
an infallible preservative against the extravagances into which all 
these methods have hitherto run. And the practical differences 
between the theories would be analogous to the difference between 
the undulatory and the radiating theories of light ; either of them 
accounting for the phenomena. Indeed the most striking of all 
the arguments for the " necessity of a divine revelation" might be 
drawn from a review of the modern speculative philosophy and the 
clear exhibition of the need of such a revelation, to supply a miss- 
ing element in every problem of the universe yet constructed. 
And we say it is but a proof that the mind of man is not " natu- 
rally subject to the law of God," that this lack of an essential ele- 
ment in the problem has not been observed and admitted ; not- 
withstanding all the failures hitherto to solve the problem of the 
universe. It is held to be the sublimest of all the results of modern 
physical science, that in our age, the astronomer in his study 
should have established by abstract calculations the existence of a 
planet which hitherto had eluded the keen scrutiny of a thousand 
telescopes ; and that he should have handed over to the astronomer 
In the observatory a search-warrant describing the very time 
when, and the place where, the skulking planet must be found ; 
when and where it accordingly was found. And yet nothing can 
be simpler than the process by which this sublime discovery was 
reached. It was but the consequence of a prior discovery of an 
error in the results which should have expressed exactly the meas- 
urement of the orbit of a known planet; an inference hence, that 
since the process of calculation is indubitably just and its details 
correct — there is some element missing from the original data : 
hence the suggestion of the disturbing influence of some unknown 
planet ; and hence the calculation of its place, and consequently 
its discovery. Why is it that precisely analogous errors in the 
projection of the orbit of humanity, have not long since suggested 
the existence of another element, overlooked in the very data on 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



549 



which the whole theory is based? Why so obstinately close the 
eyes to the suggestion, that in the construction of the intellectual 
universe, Reason may not be a solitary planet moving through 
immensity around the great central mind, but that Faith also may, 
as another planet, move perhaps through the same region of the 
universe, and her orbit so cross that of the sister planet, or have 
some point of contact with it, as to render the projection of the orbit 
of the one impossible, without calculating the influence of the 
other ? 

It is no remedy for these errors to admit a religion of nature 
merely, for this is still to assert the principle that religion is not 
a question of fact, but of reason alone. It is no remedy either to 
admit revelation in part as subsidiary to reason. For experience 
demonstrates most clearly that however the votaries of the religion 
of reason may profess or even feel deep respect for the Christian 
revelation ; or may even admit revelation at some later stage of 
the argument as a modifying influence in the system, and as 
ancillary to the work of reason ; the result will in the end be the 
same, as though no reference at all has been had to religion as 
a question of fact. Step by step the votaries of a " rational Chris- 
tianity" will be driven, first to Deism, then to Pantheism or Athe- 
ism. For of necessity a Christianity that consents to utter its voice 
only in obedience to what may claim to be reason, is of no higher 
force than the power which controls it. It dwindles therefore, first, 
into a mere hypothetical and visionary system, which can afford 
no solid ground of hope and comfort to the soul. Nothing then is 
more natural than that to a mind so disappointed in the results 
of its faith, revelation shall seem to be a mere excrescence on 
natural religion. For a like reason natural religion shall by the 
same process become to such a mind a system of mere empiricism, 
feeble in its arguments, unsatisfactory in its proofs, earthly and 
grovelling in its sanctions. The God of this religion, having first 
dwindled into an object within the reach of human reason, shall 
soon be degraded to the level of humanity ; and finally as an un- 
worthy and unnecessary conception, — by a higher philosophy, be 
banished from the universe. Hence the entirely fruitless results 
of all the speculations in theology which have assumed religion 
to be merely a question of reason during the past three centuries. 
The world has been kept ever astir with the "movement' 1 of a 
" progressive" theology of reason, and encouraged by most con- 
fident assurances of the speedy construction of a system which 



550 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



shall be adapted to the more advanced stage of humanity. There 
has indeed been "movement" enough. With an energy and 
power of genius never before witnessed, men have set themselves 
to reinvestigate first truths, and construct a moral system of the 
universe. There has been " progress," but it has been progress 
forever in a circle. The latest results of Infidelity in all its forms 
are approximating more and more to the first results of the Infi- 
delity of the age immediately succeeding the revival of learning. 
And as now we trace the philosophical history of the last three 
hundred years, we but perform a voyage of circumnavigation. As 
some traveller who having toiled over mountains and seas, through 
sandy deserts and tangled wilderness, ever keeping his face to the 
east, finds himself at last precisely at the spot whence he set out, 
only approaching from an opposite point of the compass, so our 
progress over the realms of modern skeptical philosophy. We set 
out with Spinoza — that God is the universe, and end with Strauss — 
that the universe is God. 

Here then, in short, are the theological difficulties of Infidelity. 
Such is the constitution of man, that he must have a positive faith. 
If Christianity as a system of faith be held either insufficient 01 
defective, it behooves those who hold it such to make a better pro- 
vision for the wants of the world. In this provision there should 
be at least a reasonable degree of unity and consistency. But 
you have exhibited nothing but a congeries of opinions, boldly 
announced indeed and obstinately defended, yet all contradictory 
and equally worthless. Truth is unity — truth is ever consistent 
with itself. But you have never yet united in a single article of 
faith. Each successive speculation destroys that which preceded 
it. You claim progress, and ever hold out hopes of a glorious 
goal to be reached — yet march in solemn procession ever in a 
circle and leave your followers at last, just where you found them — 
with no God to worship — no retribution to fear — no immortality to 
hope for — and not a single inquiry of their spiritual nature 
answered. 

II. The ethical difficulties of Infidelity maybe discussed within 
much narrower limits. They are of such a character as to be 
obvious upon a mere suggestion even to minds little accustomed 
to abstract reasoning. And the relation of this to the former 
branch of the argument is so intimate, as to be rather in the 
nature of a corollary from it. At the same time this view of the 
subject is in many respects more important than the former, 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



551 



especially from the fact that the necessity of morality to the social 
existence of man is far more generally appreciated by the mass of 
men — and the subject appeals more directly to their present and 
obvious interests. It will be necessary however to confine this 
branch of the subject to a mere outline and illustration by way 
of specimen of the argument. 

We deem it unnecessary to go into an argument here to prove, 
that the Infidelity which rejects Christianity, and consequently 
the moral system of Christianity, is to be justly held responsible 
to supply some other system of morals for the government of 
men. All the reasons which have been exhibited already in 
establishing the obligation of Infidelity to furnish the world with 
a religious faith, apply here with still more palpable force. Nor 
is it needful to prove that some moral system, of higher sanctions 
than the mere penalties of civil and social law, is essential to the 
very existence of men together in a state of society ; for this point 
is fully admitted by all enlightened skeptics — and were it not, the 
sad experience of the world would attest it beyond dispute. 

From the very nature of the principles of morals — as arising 
out of the conviction of the relation of man to a Supreme Being — 
it is obvious that the view of the creed, of skepticism on the sub- 
ject of God and man's relation to God as before presented, is 
utterly incompatible with any higher law of morals, than that 
which appeals to the mere selfishness of men. Without the firm 
conviction of the existence of a moral Ruler — which conviction as 
we have seen, is impossible under any of the skeptical systems of 
philosophy — there can be no such things as moral laws, except in 
the most vague and metaphorical sense. Every man under this 
system is responsible to his own mind only — if responsible at all — 
for the moral character of his actions. And therefore the only 
guarantee which society can have against the graspings of his 
selfishness — the prompting of his lusts, or the impulses of his 
passions, save so far as his actions are done in open day, is in 
the fear he may have of his own mind. But why shall he fear 
himself, if a reasonable prospect of impunity from the vengeance 
of law offers, and a strong temptation of immense present advan- 
tage ? He need fear no self-remorse ; for Infidelity has relieved 
him from any fear of an avenging Judge, and conscience having 
now neither law to appeal to, nor Judge to threaten with, must 
of necessity dwindle into a mere blind instinct, whose cowardly 



552 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY 



shudderings are as unmeaning and as little to be regarded, as the 
twifcchings of a shattered nervous system. 

As to anything like positive virtue, in any sense higher than 
mere temporary expediency, it is obviously impossible under any 
pure form of the skeptical theology. There is neither room for 
the play of any of its emotions in the soul; nor any standard for 
the test of its character; nor any motive to the performance of its 
appropriate actions ; nor any support in the trials which it must 
undergo in the accomplishment of them. Once mankind generally 
have begun to doubt or to deny the existence of a moral Ruler and 
a future state, then all that cultivation of the moral taste which 
the received notions of man's relation to God necessarily tends to 
promote, must soon be abandoned. All reverence for humanity is 
destroyed. All motive to heroic actions is taken away. All 
deeds of disinterested kindness, all aspirations of a lofty and self- 
sacrificing Patriotism cease to form part of the history of the race. 
The tale of romantic chivalry shall be superseded by the narra- 
tive of successful trading; the tale of devoted love, by the hand- 
book of the art of seducing; all political science shall be reduced 
to a question of physical power ; morality becomes a mere ques- 
tion of profit and loss — and the account with conscience may be 
kept by day-book and ledger. There being no other protection 
between each man and danger, than a law which can guard only 
against open acts, and which can condemn only for deeds of guilt 
proven to have been done, each man becomes fearful and sus- 
picious of his fellow ; this constant fear and suspicion begets 
cowardice ; and cowardice begets cruelty. The struggle of mere 
brute force for the mastery now begins, and continues, till the 
"last man" shall remaiti alone on all the earth. We have not 
the space here to develop tully the logical connection between the 
skepticism which banishes the idea of a Providence and retribution 
from among men, and the utter destruction of human society. If 
however any one fail to perceive at once the connection, he needs 
only to pursue his own reflections a short space, to find that the 
conception of a God and a future existence underlies the whole 
field of those human impulses and human sympathies which con- 
nect man with man in society. 

It is very true that these results have not very extensively fol- 
lowed the speculations of skepticism hitherto. The reason why 
they have not however is the restraint still held over men. by that 
revelation which infidelity has professed to despise. Men are more 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



553 



easily led astray in matters of speculative opinion than in matters 
relating to their practical welfare in the present life. Hence many 
who have adopted the theory of skepticism as a theology have been 
very slow to adopt the system of practical morality which necessa- 
rily flows from it. And thus a great portion of men act in the 
teeth of their creed ; and while they join in the cry against the 
theology of the gospel, think it best to let the world abide by the 
morality of the gospel. 

But we have not to rely merely on logical deductions to prove 
that the theology of modern infidelity must lead to a subversion 
of all ethical principles. These deductions have been made for us 
in many cases by the skeptics themselves. And all that is 
needful to the exhibition of the ethical difficulties of infidelity, is a 
reference to the moral principles which it has formally announced. 
Mr. Hobbes, in perfect consistency with his Theology, utterly repu- 
diates the common distinction between right and wrong, as incom- 
patible with the view of man as a creature of sensation, to whom 
such ideas must be mere phantoms. While Spinoza, from the 
very opposite section of philosophy, affirms the same conclusion, on 
the score that God being the universal substance, all that happens 
must so happen by the energy of this substance, and therefore 
there can be no room for the distinction between right and wrong 
in actions which all alike have their origin in God. So in later times 
the French successors of Hobbes — Voltaire, Diderot, and D'Alem- 

bert preached the morality which Robespierre, Danton, and Marat 

practised. Denying any moral distinction in actions, Diderot 
claimed for every man the right to do as he pleases, and to choose 
according to the instincts of his nature. Volney, in full consistency 
with the theological system of the whole materialistic school, held 
self-preserv T ation to be at once the ground and the end of all 
morality^-that to be right which ministers pleasure and prolongs 
life that to be wrong which inflicts pain or shortens life. So revert- 
ing again to the opposite school of idealism — Fichte affirms that 
holiness and sin are only seemingly such, because of our peculiar 
constitution, and holiness and sin are mere pictures of the brain hav- 
ing no inherent, absolute nature. Schelling subverts all moral 
obligation, by the dogma that everything, as by a blind fatality, 
must develop itself precisely as it is developed. In the system of 
Hegel which deifies the thinking principle in man, or that of 
Cousin with its divine humanity, there is in the nature of the case 
no room for the ordinary conception of morals; for wi^y should a 



554 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



divine humanity dread sin or strive after rectitude ? From these 
specimens we may see that so far as concerns what we may term 
the systems of pure and positive infidelity, both material and ideal, 
the subversion of all moral distinctions is not left to mere inference. 
The deductions are boldly made ; and taking them as so made, we 
defy the ingenuity of man to devise a society which could exist a 
year under their practical development. 

The more practical English freethinkers had the ingenuity to 
save — or at least making a show of saving— the principles of 
morals, while they aimed to subvert the theology of Christianity. 
In the true spirit of his philosophy Mr. Hume merely doubted, in 
regard to morals. The greater portion of the English skeptics, as 
if to avoid the ethical difficulties of their less practical brethren, 
have been inclined to elevate natural, as they depreciated revealed 
religion ; and thereby, as they imagined, preserve the sanctions 
of morality harmless. Thus Herbert, Bolingbroke, and Shafts- 
bury, while decrying the Christian theology, yet claimed to be the 
devotees of a religion of nature, and pre-eminently the instructors 
of mankind in the principles of morality. But the same suggestions 
which we have made above as to the intrinsic feebleness of a mere 
natural religion, apply in all their force to the morality which has 
its foundation alone in the reasonings of natural religion. If reli- 
gion — any religion which is adapted to the actual state of man and 
his wants — must be a question of fact, rather than of reason, then 
also the moral principles which shall guide men aright in the mat- 
ter of duty, must have a like positive ground in order to give them 
efficiency. As a religious faith which has no other ground than 
the speculative reasonings of men, is not adequate to comfort and 
sustain the soul in the hour of darkness and affliction, because it 
is not of authority and is not positive — nay more, because its 
ground cannot be comprehended by the great mass of men ; so 
neither can a practical morality, which is merely inferential, 
and depending for its development upon the subtle reasoning of 
mere " scribes," be of positive obligation sufficient to restrain the 
passions of men in the hour of temptation — nor serve as an ever- 
present, authoritative guide to the conscience, in its practical judg- 
ments of the every-day actions of life. Just as the merely natural 
religion has ever a tendency to evaporate into subtle hypothesis 
and dreamy sentiment, so the morality which derives its sanctions 
and its energy from natural religion alone, is ever prone to lose its 
seat as judge in the :ourt of conscience ; and descend to the arena 



r 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELIEY. 



555 



of debate with reason, as to its authority; and finally be hooted 
out by the passions, as a disagreeable and impertinent intruder. 
To illustrate by a single case, the vagueness of the morality, — 
Bolingbroke sums up all practical ethics in this rule: "So regu- 
late your appetites as will conduce to the exercise of your reason, 
the health of your body and the pleasures of your senses, all taken 
and considered together; for herein all true happiness consists." 
Imagine now the philosopher to come in contact with some crea- 
ture of ignorance, passion, and proclivity to vice. The sage 
reproves his vices and discourses in lofty strains of the pleasures 
of virtue. But pleasure to any man depends much upon his 
tastes. Imagine the devotee of sin to reply — " My lord, your tastes 
and mine differ — and you. know there is no disputing about taste, 
you pursue what is the path of pleasure to you in the pursuits of 
speculative philosophy, I not having either your genius, education 
or peculiar turn of mind, pursue what I conceive to be the ' pleasure 
of my senses' in a reasonable and healthy indulgence of what you 
are pleased to term vices." Is not the question finished ? Unless 
there be motives to virtue clear enough to be comprehended by 
every capacity, and strong enough to over-ride the strength of 
passion — and of certainty far beyond the reasoning of a mere 
philosopher, there can be no such thing practically as morality for 
the great mass of men. 

Another recourse of infidelity to relieve the system from its ethi- 
cal difficulties — one very common with the popular infidelity of our 
own day — is the method of separating the theology of the gospel 
from the morality of the gospel, and while rejecting the former to 
eulogize and recommend the latter. Some distinguished skeptics 
have attempted to select out and reduce into system the moral 
precepts of Jesus, throwing all else in the gospel aside as worth- 
less. If however the view which has been taken of all morals as 
founded upon man's relation to God and a future life is correct, 
this method of infidelity is peculiarly absurd. The morality of 
Jesus without the theology of Jesus, is but "the play of Hamlet 
with the character of Hamlet omitted." If the theology of Jesus is 
wrong, his morality is groundless. It has no authority save the 
mere name of a mere man, who on this supposition, claimed tobe 
what he was not — it is a morality inconsistent with itself and 
with reason. Surely skepticism must be reduced to a great strait, 
that it should resort to such a device. It is a plagiarism of a rare 



556 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



fashion, that iirst renders an author's views worthless and alsurd, 
and then steals them from him ! 

These mere suggestions must suffice as an illustration of this 
branch of the subject. The sum of the whole matter as to the diffi- 
culties of infidelity in this view, is that practically it leaves the 
world without morals, and therefore without the means of social 
existence. For however some of its advocates talk of moral duty 
as derived from the light of nature and the deductions of reasoning ; 
however others may extol morality and offer to patronize even the 
strict system of the gospel, yet infidelity as a system has and can 
have no principles of ethics which can be comprehended. It has 
neither the foundation nor superstructure for the guidance and 
enforcement of practical duty. As in its theology it either denies 
or doubts of a personal and moral God of providence ; denies or 
doubts any true immortality of the soul ; denies or doubts 
a future retribution of happiness for the good, and misery for 
the wicked ; so it practically excludes God from all its theories 
of ethics — one resolves all morality into self-love ; another into 
what is useful to society ; another declares that to be right which 
he thinks right. There is no personal duty which some one of 
them does not impugn ; no bond of human society which some one 
does not burst asunder. Having effaced the distinctions between 
good and evil, and dug up the very foundations of morals, they give 
over society to the weak and blind guardianship of civil law — as its 
only protection against all the selfish interests, and all the base pas- 
sions which belong to an uncultivated and unrestrained humanity. 

III. The logical difficulties of infidelity, which yet remain to be 
considered, are so numerous and so various in their character, that 
anything beyond a mere indication of their general character, is 
impracticable within our present circumscribed limits. This is the 
less to be regretted, since on this branch of the subject, the simple 
suggestion of the points in their proper order and classification 
will exhibit the full force of the general argument. 

Adhering to the definition of infidelity as comprising all forms 
of speculative belief which reject the Christian Revelation, the 
logical difficulties that pertain to it might be classified under three 
general heads, as relating to the three general forms of unbelief — 
the Atheistical, the Pantheistical, and the Deistical. Our argument 
confines itself mainly to the last. For the logical difficulties of 
Atheism are in themselves so obvious and so insuperable, as to 
have created a very general doubt in later times whether, except 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



557 



in the case of partial insanity, any man can be an absolute 
Atheist. The difficulties that meet the theory of an uncaused and 
ungoverned universe at the first outset, and which follow it with 
increasing power through every stage of its reasoning, render 
this scheme possible of belief only to minds " already given over to 
strong delusion to believe a lie." The sum of the improbabilities 
in this creed — according to the almost universal admission that 
every effect must have a cause — is absolutely infinite at the very 
outset. The marks of design in every physical phenomenon that 
meets the eye — the hand, the ear, the heart — every member of 
every living body that exists — indicating that it has been formed 
by some wise designer — are all so many individual protests against 
the Atheist's creed, that all is the work of chance, or of a blind 
unintelligent necessity. Yet the sum of these innumerable phe- 
nomena is by no means the exponent of the degree of improba- 
bility that arises against this system. For each individual mem- 
ber, of each individual creature, having certain fixed relations to 
each other member, of proportion, harmony, and fitness, becomes 
(to use a mathematical form of expressing it) only the root of a 
power, whose index is the number of such members of each 
creature that exists; and therefore the true expression for the 
degree of improbability, at this stage of the argument, is the sum 
of all the members of the innumerable living existences of the 
natural world, raised to a power whose index is the expression, for 
the number of organs in each individual of all the infinite num- 
ber. Nay, this expresses not yet the degree of improbability — for 
each of these individual existences has a relation to the system of 
which it forms a part ; which relation is just as unlikely to have 
been determined by chance, as that by chance, any member of 
any individual creature should have been formed as it is ; and 
therefore the expression for the degree of improbability at this 
stage of the argument is again to be multiplied by the infinite 
improbability, that in any other way than by a designing mind 
the relation of infinite parts to an infinite whole could have been 
so nicely adjusted ; since one chance mistake in the happening 
of its construction must have destroyed all this harmony of rela- 
tion. And now while the mind is yet laboring under the stupen- 
dous difficulties which the ordinary visible world thus heaps upon 
any theory that denies a first designing cause; astronomy comes 
in to multiply the already inconceivable sum of improbabilities, 
not merely by the number of other worlds in the systems to which 



558 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



this world stands related, and then by the imagined number of 
systems, but by the products arising from the multiplication of 
the number of worlds into the number of the relations of each, and 
that by the product of the number of systems into the number of 
the relations of each. In like manner, the microscope opening up 
a new world in each minute particle of this world as seen by it, 
comes in with its discoveries to swell the infinities which already 
express the chances against Atheism, by multiplying all these 
again into the product of the infinite number of the individuals 
within reach of the microscope, by the number of the relations of 
each to its system, and of each to each other! An intelligent re- 
ception of absolute Atheism is impossible. 

The Pantheistic systems of unbelief — alike those which are con- 
structed after the subjective (" me"), the objective (not-me), or in 
the logical process (ideal absolute) theories, avoid the difficulties 
of the older and more matter-of-fact systems of Atheism only by 
keeping out of the reach of ordinary earthly reasonings. While 
soaring in their Ixionic flight, they rise beyond the reach, when 
having suffered the Ixionic fall, they sink beneath the contempt, 
of common sense thinkers ; and have therefore generally passed 
unanswered as to their religious difficulties. It is obvious that all 
the modern Pantheistic systems, denying in substance, any in- 
telligent personal First Cause instead of removing out of the way, 
only manage to roll forward the stone, over which Atheism falls 
and is broken, a step or two farther into the dark. If the thinking 
"I," is the only God, whence then the material universe? If 
the " not-I" or the external universe, be God. whence the distinctive 
" I ?" Or if God be the logical process ever developing, — by what 
twist in that process does thought develop matter ? It is un- 
philosophical to assume the existence of any material universe at 
all ; — then it is at least philosophical to ask : How came unphilo- 
sophical minds by the notion, that there is such a material uni- 
verse? If the world do not exist as a phenomenon, yet the notion 
that it does exist is indisputably a phenomenon, at least to us who 
think so. If Pantheism, by disputing the premises, may avoid the 
obligation to suggest a first cause for the existence of the world, 
it cannot avoid the obligation to suggest a first cause for the very 
generally prevailing notion that there is a world. 

It is more important, however, to complete our view of the sub- 
ject, that we invite your attention more particularly to the difficul- 
ties of that form of infidelity which aims directly to subvert, and 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



559 



overthrow Christianity, hy attacking the evidences of its Divine 
authority. This brings us to notice, in conclusion, the logical 
difficulties of Deism, as exhibited in its assaults upon Christianity. 
This branch of the subject naturally divides itself into three 
topics: the logic of the skeptical criticism as applied to the 
authenticity and credibility of the gospel records ; the logic of the 
skeptical arguments against the subject matter of those records ; 
and the logical absurdity of the theories on which skepticism pro- 
poses to account for the resultant phenomenon of those records; 
namely an existing Christianity in the world. 

In reference to the criticism whereby skepticism has attempted 
to impeach the veracity of the sacred writings, which is a primary 
question on the whole subject, we have room for a single illustration. 
It is a question which cannot fail to occur to any reader of those 
commentators who have impugned the veracity of the sacred 
authors ; why is skepticism so much more hostile to these than to 
any other authors of the same age in history? As narrators of 
facts, as historical witnesses, wherein is Tacitus superior to Luke, 
or Livy to Matthew? As authors on the philosophy of religion, 
why shall Cicero " De natura Deorum" be treated with respect 
and even reverence ; while Paul " De justificatione" is thrown 
in disgrace out of the circle of ancient philosophers ? As beautiful 
philosophical " reminiscences," why shall Xenophon's account of 
the last conversations and the death of his master Socrates, call 
down the applause of the schools, while John's account of the last 
discourses and the death of his master Jesus be classed with the 
reveries of fanaticism, and turned from with contempt? If the 
works of Tacitus, Livy, Cicero, and Xenophon, are known to be 
authentic, from the method of their transmission to us, and by 
reason of an accumulation of proofs in their favor, from external 
facts of all sorts and internal confirmations — far more so Luke 
and Matthew, Paul and John. If it be said that Matthew relates 
incredible events — so does Livy. If Paul deals in dark specula- 
tions about religion, so does Cicero. If John was a blind and 
devoted partisan of the persecuted Jesus, so was Xenophon of the 
persecuted Socrates. Where then is the logical consistency of that 
criticism, which, when it sweeps off at one stroke these writers of 
the New Testament, does not at once make a "tabula rasa" of 
every page of ancient history ? 

The same general remark will apply to that microscopic criti- 
cism which has paraded before the world its discoveries of the 



560 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



discrepancies between the sacred writers. Laying hold of a series 
of biographies of the life and actions of Christ by four different 
writers — biographies remarkable for their minuteness of detail — 
relating chiefly the events of three years — describing the journeys, 
the public discourses, the private intercourse, the table-talk of an 
individual — this criticism discovers and parades in triumph — one 
as evidence of " forgery," another as evidence of designed fable — 
that one evangelist affirms a certain event to have occurred at the 
sixth hour, while the other affirms it was the ninth ; that one 
says, Mary anointed the Saviour's feet, another, that she anointed 
his head ; that one quotes as the inscription on the cross, " This 
is the King of the Jews? while the other quotes it, " Jesus of 
Nazareth, King of the Jews? These instances of such criticism 
are not selected out for their insignificance, with a view to carica- 
ture, but are taken at random, as a fair average specimen of the 
• discrepancies" which the combined skeptical acuteness of the 
vulgar Paines and the accomplished Strauss's have been able to 
discover in the sacred writings. Now we do not aver that minute 
criticism is in its nature illogical ; nor even that such "discrep- 
ancies" may not furnish logical grounds for invalidating the tes- 
timony of these historians. But we have a right to aver, that if 
this criticism is just as against the credibility of these historians, 
and therefore renders it probable that the whole story is a fable — ■ 
then it is equally just as against any other historians, and renders 
equally probable the fabulous character of all discrepant writers. 
Let the critics of this school only be consistent. Because Claren- 
don affirms that Strafford was condemned on Friday and executed 
the same day, while Burnet affirms he was condemned on Friday 
and executed on the following Monday, — let it be declared to be 
the logical inference that both these histories are forgeries, or at 
best but allegorical myths of the excited revolutionary era in 
England ; and that Strafford was no real personage at all, but a 
mere nebulous idea, which, after long revolving in the English 
mind, gradually condensed into a solid conception in the legends 
of Clarendon and Burnet. We remember to have heard two 
veterans of the American Revolution, discussing some movement 
of American troops in the battle of Yorktown, in which battle both 
though then very young were actors. One spoke of the peculiar 
movement, as being yet fresh in mind as the events of yesterday, 
and that it occurred just " after dinner the other, who claimed 
to retain a no less vivid impression of the events of that memora 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



561 



ble day, persisted in affirming that the movement in question 
occurred immediately " after breakfast.'' 1 Now according to the 
critical laws which skepticism applies to the Scriptures, the logical 
inference would be a grave doubt, as to whether such a battle ever 
occurred ; and whether Washington and Cornwallis were not 
mere " mythical" ideas, which, floating in the minds of the Ameri- 
can people in that " heroic" and legendary age — representing, per- 
haps, the conception of a great national deliverance and a great 
national desolation — had at length taken definite forms in the 
minds of these old men. So of many other aspects of this criti- 
cism — what shall be said of the popular skeptical canons for the 
testing of prophecies by comparison with the record of their fulfil- 
ment? Hear the grave announcement of Dr. Strauss : "Wher- 
ever we find a narrative which recounts the accomplishment of a 
long-expected event, a strong suspicion must arise that the narra- 
tive owes its origin to the pre-existent belief that the event would 
be accomplished !" That is, when reduced to its simplest expres- 
sion — events which are expected are less likely to happen, than 
those which are unexpected — therefore the narration of the oc- 
currence of any event which was expected must be held to be 
suspicious. In fact the whole canon of the recent infidel tests of 
genuineness, may be summed up in two rules. 1. If the accounts 
of two evangelists agree exactly, neither can be real history, for 
they obviously both borrowed the story from some current fable. 
2. If they differ in any particular, both are false — for two contra- 
dictory reports must obviously be untrue. Nor is this criticism 
very sparing in the application of its canon. Matthew's report of 
the sermon on the Mount is affirmed to be spurious because it con- 
tains more than Luke's ; and Luke's is of course unworthy of 
reliance, because it contains less than Matthew's ! 

We must hasten on, however, to make at least a passing observa- 
tion on the second point suggested ; the application of the skepti- 
cal logic to the subject matter of these records. The first peculi- 
arity which will strike the student of the infidel arguments on this 
point has reference to the connection between the credibility of the 
record and the subject matter of the record. When we have 
pressed the point, as above, of the credibility of the sacred histo- 
rians, especially their obvious equality, in this respect, with any 
profane historians of the corresponding period, the reply ever is — 
that the events recorded by the sacred historians are in themselves 
incredible, and therefore the relators of them are unworthy of 

36 



562 



THE DIFFICULTIES CF IXF1JELITY. 



credit. When, however, under this second head we would p. ess the 
force of the testimony in favor of the miraculous occurrence, we are 
met with grave doubts as to the credibility of the witnesses. Now 
these two questions are most clearly altogether distinct, and that is 
a singular logic which admits of such shifts to save a point. It is but 
re-enacting in the trial of his gospel, the trial which Jesus him- 
self had at the tribunals of his country — being tried on one charge, 
and found guilty on another. Not a whit less was it a mockery 
of justice, to try him in the Sanhedrim for the crime of blasphemy, 
and then condemn him before Pilate for the crime of sedition ; 
than it is a mockery of logic thus to shift ever the issue — when 
after finding by no power of device of subtlety aught evil to say 
against the absolute integrity of the witness, to condemn him for 
the extraordinary character of the event which he attests — or 
when as philosophers debating the extraordinary event which he 
relates, to re- indict the witness in the teeth of his former verdict 
of acquittal, for bearing false testimony. Does not every man see 
that the character of the witness for veracity is one thing ; and the 
nature of the event to which he testifies is altogether another 
thing ? Yet on this very confounding of issues has modern Deism 
erected, in large part, its accusations against the gospel. 

A very similar logical inconsistency runs through most of the 
deistical argument on the whole subject of the relation of miracles 
to the doctrines announced by those who wrought the miracles. 
The design of a miracle, as we conceive, is by no means to estab- 
lish anything directly or primarily in regard to the character of 
the truths delivered by him who performs the miracle. It is but 
the external seal of a divine commission which attests the right 
of the bearer of it to teach as from God. It is just in harmony 
with the great gospel idea of a religion of fact, as that which alone 
can meet the wants of men. And it is this attestation from heaven 
to the authority of the teacher, that gives the gospel its peculiar 
adaptedness to the wants of men. It becomes thus a positive 
faith — a religion of fact. Aside from this, however, this method 
of revealing the truth through teachers, with commissions so 
attested, has a great advantage, in that hereby the world is pro- 
tected from " false Christs." For a distinct ground of evidence is 
herein set forth, which by "ts concurrence with the intrinsic excel- 
lence of the truths taught, and the honesty and purity of the teacher, 
makes it demonstrable beyond mistake that the religion so taught 
is of God. Accordingly Jesus appealed ever to these three things 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



563 



as evidence of his trustworthiness as a teacher ; the character of 
his doctrines, the holiness of his life, and the miracles which he 
wrought. The truths which he taught commended themselves to 
their consciences, his own character was in harmony with his doc- 
trine, and forbade the supposition of any sinister or selfish motive 
in teaching as he did ; and the signs and wonders which he did 
attested his authority to teach as one come from God. 

Now it will be found that the deistical argument against the 
subject matter of the Christian records, never yet has met the 
Christian evidences as presented in this concurrent argument. 
Either strangely confounding these three separate though concur- 
rent lines of proof, or not less strangely separating one from the 
rest and presuming the argument to rest upon that alone, the 
impugners of Christianity create ever false issues, or shifting the 
issue from one to another point, as the urgency of the case may 
seem to demand. They declaim against the doctrine of the gos- 
pel — especially its " mysteries," but when so doing, first separate 
these doctrines from their place in the scheme of revelation, and, 
leaving out of view the facts which attest their claim to be divine, 
deal with them as though truths of merely human origin. They 
impeach the honesty and veracity of the teacher — but in order so 
to do, first separate them in thought from the sublime truths 
which they taught, and the wonders which they did. They cavil 
at the miracles, but in order to give the cavil any force they must 
first separate the miracle as a simple phenomenon from the intrin- 
sic excellence of the doctrine, taught by him whose commission it 
was the purpose of the miracle to attest. These must suffice as 
illustrations — they are fair specimens of the whole method of infi- 
delity in dealing with the gospel. 

It now remains that the logical absurdities of Deism when called 
upon to account for the existence of Christianity as a philosophical 
phenomenon be summed up very briefly. 

There is at least one point in the whole matter upon which the 
friends and the enemies of Christianity may come together, and 
in regard to which even skepticism itself will have no doubts. 
Christianity exists. It is one of the phenomena of the world's 
history ; and one important enough to merit at least some atten- 
tion, simply as a subject of philosophic inquiry, if for no higher 
reason. The believers in Christianity have a theory on which 
they account for this phenomenon. In a manner exactly analo- 
gous to that ; n which they logically trace back some of the peculi- 



564 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



ai ities of modern governments — as the habeas corpus, and tri 1 by 
jury, to a certain era in history, and a certain Saxon race, as their 
origin, — they trace the present existing Christian religion back to 
a period 1800 years anterior to the present, and to a certain person 
called Christ, from whom it derives its name. Their logical pro- 
cess is in substance: — This system of religious doctrine, ordi- 
nances, and government is now wide-spread over the world. It 
did not have its origin in the last age, for that is absolutely impos- 
sible, being contradicted by every fact in history. It did not have 
its origin in the age before that, for that is equally impossible, and 
for the same reason. It could not have originated in any age be- 
tween the last mentioned and the period we have assigned to its 
origin — for such a supposition does violence to all the facts in the 
world's history, and no less violence to known principles of human 
nature, which absolutely forbid the supposition, that men would 
submit to have such a yoke put upon their necks by those who 
must be palpably known to be impostors. It originated therefore 
at the period, and under the circumstances which it claims foi 
itself. To this theory infidelity demurs, — not so much from any 
objection to the train of reasoning, as to the conclusion ; which 
conclusion it avers is encompassed with difficulties so great, that 
nothing but a credulity that defies all reason can overcome them. 
Let infidelity then devise a theory attended with less difficulties. 
In answer to this demand a multitude of theories have been pro- 
posed, the most important of which may be reduced to four : — 

1. Christianity originated in priestcraft and imposture during 
the " Dark Ages." This is the vulgar Horn-book theory. 

2. It originated at the period to which it refers itself, but was 
then the work of imposture and falsehood. This is a theory of a 
portion of the French and English infidelity of the last century. 

3. It originated 1800 years ago, not in imposture, but in the 
ignorance of well-meaning enthusiasts, who testify truly to the 
occurrence of events, but were prone to attribute natural events to 
supernatural causes. This is the theory of rationalism, of which 
Paulus may be taken as the exponent. 

4. It originated 1800 years ago. Yet neither in imposture nor 
in the ignorance of mistaken men, but as all other fabulous reli- 
gions, in legends and " myths," which were designed by their 
authors to convey great moral truths under the guise of allegory, 
but these were mistaken for fact and reality. This is the cele- 
brated transcendental theory of Strauss. 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



565 



Now, not to speak of the difficulties arising out of the utter con- 
tradictions of these several theories ; take them one by one, and 
we hazard little in saying that it requires infinitely more credulity 
to receive anyone of these theories as true, than would be needful 
to swallow all the contradictions and mysteries that skeptics are 
wont to ascribe to the Christian faith. There is, however, now 
space for only a single paragraph in regard to each of them. 

As to the theory of priestcraft and imposture in the dark ages, 
there is this insuperable difficulty. The conditions of the problem 
are contradictory. It is necessary to suppose at one and the same 
time, an acuteness, shrewdness, genius and capacity in the impos- 
tors altogether unparalleled ; and at the same time a darkness and 
stupidity of the people in the ages that produced the impostors 
darker than history takes any account of. Now great men have 
generally partaken somewhat of the character of the age that pro- 
duced them ; but this theory supposes the darkest and stupidest 
age in the history of man, to have produced impostors of a genius, 
a daring and an intellectual grandeur, before which all the illus- 
trious names of the world's best and brightest ages sink into utter 
insignificance. That an age stupid enough to have been so im- 
posed upon, should have produced such impostors is a greater 
wonder than any wonder the impostors ever devised. 

The second supposition — of imposture and falsehood 1800 years 
ago — involves all the absurdities of the first, with the additional 
difficulty of not having the " dark age" in which its impostors 
might play off their fantastic tricks. The detail of absurdities to 
which this theory leads, is so long as to defy any ordinary limits. 
The singular paradoxes which its impostors exhibit in their 
characters ; the union of pre-eminent villainy with transcendent 
purity — of low artifice with heroic chivalry — of more than satanic 
acuteness and forethought in arranging prophecies and their fulfil- 
ment — with a stupid thoughtlessness, in exposing themselves to 
detection by unnecessary reference to names, places, and dates, 
and unnecessary letter-writing, — which would disgrace the flim- 
siest demagogue, — who is always shrewd enough to " cover up 
his tracks ;" — all these with an hundred other absurdities to which 
this supposition drives us, mark it as the product of mind utterly 
"void of judgment," and as the faith of one "given over to strong 
delusion to believe a lie." 

The third supposition — of ignorant integrity — while at first sight 
le?* glaringly inconsistent, yet seems so only because it has the 



566 



THE DIFFICULTIES .F INFIDELI1 Y. 



advantage of more cautious and less plain-spoken advocates. 
When however the system is fully and fearlessly developed by 
such men as Paulus — who seem to have been happily constituted 
by nature with no perception of the ridiculous — we find paradoxes 
fully equal to the "impostors" of the former supposition. When 
men gravely interpret the narrative of restoring sight to the blind, 
as simply the modern operation for cataract, only a little more 
rapid — or that of restoring speech to the dumb, as but a rapider 
operation of the present German system for teaching the dumb to 
speak — or that of Jesus calming the winds and waves, as meaning 
simply that by some now unknown mesmeric power he mag- 
netized them — we may, without any disrespect to great learning 
and acuteness, be disposed to laugh. When, however, it comes to 
describing the doctrine and ethics of Jesus as remarkably pure for 
the age and the circumstances, yet only such as even a self- 
deluded impostor with good intentions may be conceived to have 
developed, we shudder at the preposterous impiety. 

The supposition of an origin of the gospel in mere "legend" 
and "myth," which the stupidity of every age since has mistaken 
for veritable history and real transactions, is one about which the 
first "difficulty" must be to conceive it possible for the human 
mind to have devised it. Indeed we are not sure, but that we feel 
prepared if challenged to the task to show, that there are this day 
more imposing difficulties in believing the proposition, that a certain 
Dr. Strauss lived in Germany who projected this theory of the 
gospel, than in believing the proposition which asserts the most 
remarkable miraculous event in the gospel. Yet there is conclu- 
sive evidence, and therefore in consistency with our system of 
logic we are bound to believe, that a German Doctor has lived, 
who gravely propounded to the world the opinion — that the per- 
sonage described by the evangelists, was an allegorical personage; — 
that these writers do not mean to relate real occurrences; — that 
the hero of their story is simply a condensation into a concrete 
form of certain nebulous ideas of the " legendary age" of the Jews ; 
— that this fabulous legend or "myth" — unlike all other legends 
which vanish from the earth as soon as an age of writing com- 
mences, — (as ghosts at the coming of the dawn) out-lived the age 
of writing ; nay absolutely obtruded itself upon the Augustan 
age of the Roman Empire ! Nay more, in that age of lawyers and 
critics, who had reduced the laws of evidence to a science — in that 
age of skej ticism and keen scrutiny — in the face of a learned priest- 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



567 



hood on the one hand, and of skeptical sadducees on the other, and 
in spite of the prejudices of a people celebrated for their fanatical 
attachment to their religion ; — this wonderful " myth" was mis- 
taken for truth — yea, was adopted with zeal as a religion — was 
embraced by such numbers as soon to revolutionize the religion 
of the country that gave it birth ; — yea, in spite of the bitterest op- 
position and persecution, it spread and obtained power till it 
revolutionized the Roman Empire ! This, surely, forms a fitting 
finale to " the difficulties of Infidelity." 

From the whole view of the subject thus presented in mere out- 
line, it is plain that whatever may be the justice or the injustice of 
the charge of illogical, stupid credulity so often hurled at Chris- 
tians, it ill becomes infidelity to make the charge. Had it been 
consistent with the limits of this argument, it would not have been 
difficult to show by a comparison of each of the skeptical systems^ 
as they passed in review before us, with the Christian system, that 
it requires far less sacrifice of reason and common sense, and in- 
volves far less credulity to receive, than to reject Christianity. 
That so far as concerns the larger portion of the skeptical systems, 
any faith in them involves a degree of credulity so utterly prepos- 
terous as to be indicative of a " mind void of judgment" given over 
to " believe a lie." Whilst so far as regards the very best of the 
skeptical systems, the mind which can work its way through all 
the difficulties that inhere in them ought to find little trouble with 
even the greatest difficulties of Christianity. The mysteries of 
Christianity all lie in a region where finite reason cannot, in the 
nature of the case, be expected to reach them. The mysteries of 
infidelity, equally inexplicable, originate merely in its own self-con- 
tradictions. The religion which Christianity offers to the world is 
a religion of fact, which the learned and the ignorant alike can com- 
prehend. The religion which infidelity presents, where it presents 
any religion at all — is a religion of subtle and refined speculations be- 
yond the comprehension of all but a few learned and acute thinkers. 
The sanctions of Christianity appeal directly to man's conscience, 
and to his instinctively felt relation to God as his Ruler and Judge. 
The sanctions alike of all the systems of skepticism, to the lowest 
views of his self-interest. The evidences of Christianity, aside 
from the intrinsic fitness of its doctrines to his spiritual nature, 
rest upon facts, the force of which any man can comprehend. The 
evidence of any system of faith provided by skepticism must rest 
upon subtle and refined deductions, of the correctness of which 



568 



REE DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 



even the most learned can never feel absolutely certain. The 
authoritative standard of Christian faith presents a unity, abso- 
lutely miraculous, between men of every variety of natural gifts, 
extending over a period of fifteen hundred years. The diversities 
of skepticism are almost equally wonderful, but only as exhibiting 
the endless vagaries of the human mind. Christian philosophy 
with its fundamental fact admitted concerning a revelation, can 
explain on almost any theory the phenomena of humanity and 
of the universe. Infidelity repudiating that fact, runs into every 
conceivable absurdity in the attempt to construct a theory of the 
universe. Christianity contains mysteries. Infidelity exhibits 
endless contradictions. Christianity teaches doctrines which 
excite the hostility of the human heart. Infidelity promulges 
dogmas which do violence to the human understanding. Chris- 
tianity is accused of setting at naught the laws of reason and of 
evidence ; and of opening a door to all manner of imposture upon 
the credulity of the world. Infidelity subverts all the laws of evi- 
dence, and if consistent with itself, makes all history one vast 
blank. In its sublimest results it leaves mem's soul doubtful of its 
own existence, without moral principles to guide and enlighten it 
— man's intellect to become "a mind void of judgment," — and the 
whole race of man to an eternal orphanage, wandering forevei 
the sport of a fitful chance, or — what is no better — left to the 
guidance of certain blind ''rrtu'a 1 !* X W3," or to th* iron rule of 9 
cold and heartless destiny. 



€\)t Mnntf Cffecis nf Cjiristtairihj. 

BY 

KEY. N. L. EICE, D.D., 



CINCINNATI. 



That men are fallen creatures, the past history and the present 
condition of the world sufficiently prove. Christianity professes 
to reveal the only means by which they can be restored to the favor 
of God and to happiness. Two great difficulties stand in the way 
of such restoration, viz. : their legal responsibilities and their moral 
character. As transgressors, all are condemned ; as sinners they 
are hateful to God, and are miserable. Christianity offers gratui- 
tous justification through the atonement of Jesus Christ, and sanc- 
tification by the Holy Spirit through revealed truth. It proposes to 
secure to those who embrace it, a title to an eternal inheritance, 
and to fit them for its enjoyment. Sinful affections, as the Scrip- 
tures teach, are necessarily the cause of misery. Perfect happi- 
ness, therefore, cannot be enjoyed, unless perfect holiness be 
attained. 

The chief means by which the moral perfection of human na- 
ture is to be accomplished, is the truth. "Ye shall know the 
truth," said our Saviour to the Jews who believed on him, " and 
the truth shall make you free." " Sanctify them through thy 
truth," he prayed for his disciples, ■" thy word is truth." Chris- 
tianity is eminently distinguished from all other systems of religion, 
in that the affections it requires, and the virtues it inculcates, arise 
and are matured in connection with correct views of truth. The 
service it demands, therefore, being obedience to the truth, is emi- 
nently a " reasonable service." The doctrine of the Scriptures is, 
that the tendency of moral and religious truth is to produce virtu- 
ous affections and upright conduct; the tendency of error, the re- 
verse. False teachers, therefore, as our Saviour taught, are to be 
distinguished from the true " by their fruits"— that is, by the effects 
of their doctrines upon their own moral character, and upon that 
of their followers. One might as reasonably expect to gather 
grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, as to find true virtue the 
result of false principles. The same idea is beautifully expressed 
by Bacon — " Truth and goodness differ but as the seal and the 
print ; for truth prints goodness." I think, I may venture to as- 



572 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



sume the truth of this principle without labored argument, and 
may venture, without the fear of contradiction, to found upon it 
the following proposition, viz. : — 

There is no safer test of the truth of any system of religions 
belief than its practical effects upon those who embrace it. If the 
practical effects of any system are partly good and partly bad, 
then it is partly true and partly false. If they are wholly good, 
then it is wholly true. But in looking for the effects of Chris- 
tianity we must be careful not to attribute to it effects which it 
does not produce. Mistakes on this point have thrown upon it 
most unmerited reproaches, and have driven multitudes to infi- 
delity. That we may avoid such an error, and obtain a fair view 
of this important subject, 1 remark — 

1. Christianity cannot be justly held responsible for evils exist- 
ing where its doctrines and worship have been materially changed 
and corrupted. It is not fair, for example, to charge Christianity 
with the ignorance and the immorality which prevail in coun- 
tries, where Roman Catholicism predominates. For there the 
people have not access to the Scriptures ; and the doctrines of the 
gospel have been corrupted by a multitude of human traditions, 
and by the interpretations of a corrupt priesthood. We are here 
to defend Christianity as it is presented to us in the Bible alone. 

2. Nor is Christianity to be held responsible for evils resulting 
from interpreting the Scriptures according to popular systems 
of philosophy. Both in ancient and modern times not a few pro- 
fessed expounders of the Scriptures have insisted, that philosophy 
must furnish the key to the right understanding of them. Origen, 
the most learned of the Christian fathers, employed all his learning 
and ingenuity in the vain effort to harmonize the doctrines of 
Revelation and the philosophy of Plato and his followers. To do 
this, it became necessary to neglect the obvious meaning of the 
language of the Scriptures, and to adopt the most fanciful methods 
of interpretation ; and it is not difficult to trace many of the 
most absurd superstitions of the dark ages to the unnatural union 
of false philosophy and Christianity. And in modern times many 
learned men in Germany have attempted to expound the Bible in 
accordance with a system of philosophy which denies the possi- 
bility of inspiration. " Esteeming themselves wise, they became 
fools." The same philosophy which declared inspiration an im- 
possibility, drove its admirers intc the glaring absurdities of 
Pantheism. 



THE MORAL EFFtfOTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



573 



The Bible was not written exclusively or chiefly for learned men, 
but for the people ; and its writers intended to be understood. We 
insist, therefore, that it be understood according to the obvious 
meaning of its language ; and we are prepared to abide the result. 
If, when thus interpreted, its effects are bad. let its claims be rejected. 

3. Christianity cannot be expected to produce its legitimate fruits 
where church and state are united. The church is trammelled by 
the legislation of men who neither understand the doctrines, nor 
regard the precepts of the gospel ; and civil honors and worldly 
gain bribe corrupt men to enter her pale, and to seek the ministerial 
office. If you would judge fairly of any system of religion or of 
morals, examine its fruits where it stands on its own merits, and 
makes its own impress upon the characters of men. Christianity 
has achieved her most glorious triumphs, when the world stood in 
open hostility to her ; and she asks still to be allowed to stand forth 
in the majesty and power of truth, and to be judged by her fruits. 

4. It is important to remark, that Christianity proposes gradu- 
ally to purify, not instantly to perfect those who embrace it. Their 
progress is as the growth of the human body from infancy to man- 
hood, or as the gradually increasing light from the early dawn to 
"the perfect day." Even the Apostles of Christ professed not to 
have attained perfect holiness, but only to be pressing toward it. 
We must, therefore, expect to find imperfections even in sincere 
Christians, and still greater imperfections in the church, since it is 
impossible entirely to exclude from its pale, self-deceived or hypo- 
critical men. But when evils do appear, fairness and candor re- 
quire us, before admitting them as evidences against the claims 
of Christianity, to inquire, whether they are the result of adhe- 
rence to its doctrines, or of departure from them. If the former be 
true, an argument, we acknowledge, is thus presented against its 
claims ; if the latter, those very evils prove its truth. The skill 
of a physician is as clearly proved by the fact that his patients 
suffer by departing from his prescriptions, as that their health is 
improved by regarding them. 

We are now prepared to inquire into the practical tendencies of 
Christianity. These are so numerous and so important, that we 
can do little more, in a single discourse, than glance at the more 
prominent. 

L Our first inquiry shall be concerning the moral effects of 
Christianity. Sin, as the Scriptures teach, is not only dishonoring 
to God, whose moral image it effaces from the human mind, and 



574 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



whose law it transgresses, but is the prolific cause of all the degra- 
dation and misery in our world. The intelligent and candid phi- 
losopher must acknowledge the truth of this doctrine. For it is 
not reasonable that free moral agents under the government of an 
infinitely perfect God, should be made wretched, or in any degree 
unhappy without guilt; and a large portion of the sufferings of 
men are traceable directly to sin. When, therefore, the Scriptures 
teach, that the attainment of perfect holiness is essential to the 
enjoyment of perfect happiness, they may safely appeal to sound 
philosophy for a confirmatory testimony. 

What, then, are the moral tendencies of Christianity? We 
may answer this question either by inquiring into the character of 
its doctrines, and judging from what w 7 e know of human nature, 
what must be the effects of such doctrines upon it, or by ascer- 
taining from history what effects it has actually produced. We 
propose very briefly to adopt both these methods. 

To produce upon the human mind the best moral impressions, 
there must be a perfect moral code — a code perfect in its require- 
ments and in its system of motives. Such a moral code we find 
in the Scriptures. This truth has been so ably presented in pre- 
ceding lectures of this course, that I need do no more than state 
a few T leading principles. 

1, The God whom Christianity teaches us to love and to worship, 
is a being of infinite holiness. The seraphim around his throne cry 
one to another, " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts !" Now, no 
truth is more evident, than that the moral characters of men are, to 
a very great extent, moulded by the character of the being whom 
they worship. In him they recognize the highest perfection, and 
it is their supreme desire to please him. His attributes are the 
constant theme of their admiring contemplation. No one wonders, 
that the worshippers of Bacchus were drunkards, or that those of 
Venus were licentious. In view of this principle, what, we ask, 
must be the moral influence of the character of the God of Reve- 
lation — a God of inflexible justice, of infinite truthfulness, of 
boundless benevolence — possessing, in an infinite degree, every 
moral perfection ? But God has come nigh to us. "The Word 
was made flesh, and dwelt among us." God was " manifest in the 
flesh." We have before us in the Gospels, the history of his life 
and labors. He was " holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from 
sinners." And an Apostle exhorts — " Let the same mind be in 
^oti which was alsc in Christ Jesus." The Christian is the disciple, 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



575 



the follower of Christ. In him he beholds and admires w all human 
beauties, all divine." How powerful the effect of such an exam- 
pie — an example of meekness and gentleness, of uprightness and 
holiness, of benevolence and good doing. 

2. The moral law, is like its glorious Author, perfect. No sin 
was ever committed which it does not, directly or indirectly, forbid. 
No virtue ever adorned the human mind, which it does not incul- 
cate. No relation which God has constituted or allowed, the duties 
of which it does not prescribe. Husband and wife, parent and 
child, master and servant, ruler and subject, — all find in it their 
duty and their reward ; whilst the foundation of universal benev- 
olence is laid in the truth, that all men are the children of the 
same Father, and in that other truth — that " he hath made of on** 
blood all nations." This law lays hold on the heart's affections 
and places them on proper objects. " Love is the fulfilling of the 
law" — love supreme to God, and equal love to man. Christianity, 
unlike all other systems of religion, is not satisfied with forms, 
rites and ceremonies. It demands "clean hands and a pure 
heart." Could the hearts of all men be, at this moment, brought 
into conformity to its requirements, the ten thousand streams of 
misery that flood the earth, would be instantly dried up, and ten 
thousand streams of joy would be instantly opened. 

3. Christianity, whilst it calls upon men to "follow holiness," 
presses upon their minds every possible motive to holiness, in its 
fullest strength. It appeals to the understanding, and claims a 
" reasonable service." It says to men — " Come and let us reason 
together." God is your Creator, supporter, benefactor, redeemer ; 
is it not reasonable that you should serve him ? It appeals to the 
conscience. God is glorious ; are you not bound to adore and 
praise him ? Is it too much for the Creator, and the author of 
"every good gift and every perfect gift," to claim the affections and 
the service of the creature ? Is not man most solemnly bound to 
love Him by whom he was loved even unto death? — who gave his 
life a ransom for him ? Christianity appeals to the affections. 
Look upon "the king in his beauty," and admire him. Think 
of his ten thousand unmerited gifts — above all, of " his unspeaka- 
ble gift" — and be grateful. Consider all he has done and all he 
offers to do for you, and then exclaim — " Bless the Lord, O my 
soul, and forget not all his benefits." Christianity appeals to the 
interests of men. They are averse to misery, and they desire 
happiness. It says to the righteous — " it is well," but "'woe to 



576 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the wicked." It teaches that sin destroys peace of mind even iu 
this life. " There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." It 
places before us the doctrine of a particular providence — a provi- 
dence extending not only to every individual of the human race, 
but even to the sparrow sold for half a farthing; and upon this 
doctrine it founds another of vast practical importance — that the 
path of duty is always the path of safety and of prosperity. Wis- 
dom's ways are pleasantness, and all her paths are paths of peace. 

Christianity proclaims man immortal, and that the present life 
is probationary — a preparation for the next, which is eternal. It 
opens before him the deep, eternal degradation, and fearful ruin 
into which sin will inevitably plunge him. It holds up before 
him a crown of glory and of honor that fades not, to be placed on 
the head of him who perseveres in holy living. When the world 
would tempt him from virtue's path, it asks him — " What will it 
profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his soul ?" 

The Christian regards himself as a pilgrim on the earth, and is 
accustomed to think of heaven as his eternal home. When he 
thinks of the shortness of life, he thinks also of his nearness to 
heaven. When weary of the cares, toils and troubles of life, he 
looks with delight to heaven as his rest. Now, no principle of 
human nature is better understood, than that its character is 
moulded very much by the objects of frequent and pleasing 
thought; nor is anything more natural, than that one should en- 
deavor to become fitted for the station he expects and desires to 
fill. But the heaven of which the Christian thinks so constantly 
and with so much pleasure, is a holy place — a place of holy em- 
ployments and holy joys ; and without holiness none shall enter 
within its portals. " Blessed are they that do his commandments, 
that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in 
through the gates into the city." How powerful the influence of 
the hope of such a heaven in elevating and purifying the affec- 
tions. As often as the Christian thinks of heaven, he thinks of its 
spotless purity, and feels powerfully impelled to " follow holiness," 
without which he cannot hope to enjoy it. 

Christianity brings those who embrace it, under the most solemn 
promise to live a life of holiness, to avoid even the appearance of 
evil. The promise is made, not to man, but to God. The baptis- 
mal water, the emblem of purity, seals the promise, and conse- 
crates him forever to the service of the God of holiness ; and God 
promises to bless him in his endeavors to cultivate virtue. And as 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



577 



often as he partakes of the Lord's Supper, he renews that solemn 
covenant engagement, and is reminded by the broken bread and 
the flowing wine, that Jesus Christ died " to redeem us from all 
iniquity j and to purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of 
good works." Whatever influence, then, can be exerted by prom- 
ises the most sacred, often and most solemnly repeated, is exerted 
by Christianity to preserve from sin those who embrace it. 

The moral character of men is powerfully influenced by the 
sentiments and example of those with whom they associate. In 
view of this principle of human nature, Christianity brings its 
subjects into an organized body — the church. Thus each indi- 
vidual is sustained by those of similar views and aims. 

Such are the moral influences which Christianity brings to bear 
on the minds of those who embrace it. And we may boldly chal- 
lenge the infidel to find a single defect in its moral code, or to sug- 
gest a single additional motive, or even to add one particle of 
strength to any motive presented by the gospel. Whatever can 
be done, therefore, by reason, and motive, and encouragement to 
make men virtuous, Christianity does, and does perfectly. " The 
law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." It approaches the 
mind by every avenue, lays hold of every faculty, and moulds the 
whole man to virtue. Its fruits are wholly good ; and it is wholly 
true. 

Does the history of Christianity sustain us in these positions? 
We affirm that it does. When Jesus Christ appeared on earth, 
he found the Jews in deep moral degradation, having substituted 
forms and ceremonies for the virtues of religion, zealous in the 
observance of their traditionary ablutions, and in tithing " mint, 
anise and cummin." but utterly forgetful of " the weightier mat- 
ters of the law." The surrounding nations were enveloped in the 
midnight darkness of a degrading polytheism, which the intricate 
speculations of Grecian and Roman philosophers had utterly failed 
to dispel. " The world by wisdom knew not God." 

But at the preaching of the gospel the Jew turned from his 
shadowy rites to cultivate the virtues of an elevated piety ; and 
the Gentile abandoned his images of wood and stone to worship 
the high God of heaven. In the former, an expansive benevolence 
took the place of narrow bigotry; and in the latter, pure morality 
was substituted for degrading rites and beastly pollutions. " Cer- 
tainly," says Wadsworth, "the character of the first Christians 
presents to us a singular spectacle of virtue and piety, the more 

37 



578 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHPwISTIAJTCTY. 

splendid as it was surrounded by very mournful and very general 
depravity." " Is there anything- more unquestionable," asks the 
learned Witherspoon, " or that hath been more frequently ob- 
served, than that the victory of truth over error, in the first ages 
of Christianity, was much more owing to the shining piety of the 
primitive Christians in general, together with the patience and 
constancy of the martyrs, than to any other means ?" 

Even the uncandid and sarcastic infidel Gibbon was constrained 
to bear testimony to the eminen: virtues of the primitive Chris- 
tians. He felt it incumbent on him, in writing the history of the 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to account for the aston- 
ishing success of a religion which he would not allow to have 
come from God ; and strangely enough he accounts for it in part 
from the extraordinary purity of the morals of its early converts. 
" The primitive Christian," he remarks, "demonstrated his faith by 
his virtues." And so far from intimating that there was any lack 
of purity in their morals, he considered them excessively severe. 
"It is," says he, " a very honorable circumstance for the morals of 
primitive Christians, that even their faults, or rather errors, were 
derived from an excess of virtue." Truly this is an important 
testimony. An infidel historian is constrained to testify, that such 
were the purity and the excellence of the character of the primi- 
tive Christians, as to convince multitudes who observed their con- 
duct, that the religion producing such fruits was from heaven. 
When was a similar testimony borne in favor of any other system 
of religious belief? 

And here it is worth while to adduce the testimony of Pliny, 
the Roman governor, to the virtues of the Asiatic Christians. In 
executing upon them the persecuting laws of Trajan, the em- 
peror, it became his duty to inquire judicially into their character 
and conduct. But in searching out their crimes he was con- 
strained to acknowledge their virtues. He ascertained, as he in- 
formed the emperor, that " they bind themselves by an oath, not 
to the commission of any wickedness, but not to be guilty of theft, 
or robbery, or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor to deny a 
pledge committed to them, when called upon to return it." Nearly 
a century later, as Gibbon remarks, "Tertullian, with an honest 
pride, could boast, that very few Christians had suffered by the 
hand of the executioner, except on account of their religion." 

It is true, a sad change was witnessed in the piety and morality 
of the church in succeeding ages ; but this very change affords 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



579 



evidence conclusive in favor of Christianity. For it took place 
just in proportion as the Scriptures ceased to be the sole rule of 
faith and of life, and as the doctrines of the gospel were corrupted 
by pagan philosophy and by vain traditions. It is well known, 
that during that long period emphatically and appropriately called 
the dark ages, the Bible was a prohibited book ; and it is equally 
certain, that in churches where it was still read by the people, as 
among the Waldenses, no such corruption in morals occurred. 

But the Reformation of the sixteenth century was emphatically 
a Bible reformation. The fundamental principle of it was, the 
Bible alone the rule of faith and of conduct. Its ministers pro- 
claimed the doctrines and the morality of the Scriptures ; and it 
placed the sacred volume in the hands of the people. A great 
reformation in morals was one of the results. If you would judge 
fairly of the moral effects of Christianity, begin with comparing 
the morality of pagan nations with that of Christian nations — 
nations where the Scriptures are freely circulated, and the doc- 
trines of the gospel freely proclaimed. Compare, for example, 
India with Scotland ! What a contrast, as between midnight 
and noonday. Then compare countries nominally Christian, but 
where the Bible is a prohibited book, and its doctrines corrupted 
by human tradition, with countries where the principles of the 
Reformation prevail, and where the Scriptures are in the hands of 
the people, and are regarded as the only unerring guide in faith 
and morals. Compare Spain, Portugal and Italy with England, 
Scotland and the United States. De Tocqueville asserts, that 
"there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian 
religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in 
America ;" and he adds — " There can be no greater proof of its 
utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influ- 
ence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free 
nation on the earth." He further testifies, that "in America all 
those vices which tend to impair the purity of morals, and to de- 
stroy the conjugal tie, are treated with a degree of severity un- 
known in the rest of the world." 

Let us descend to particulars. Among professing Christians 
there are doubtless not a few whose conduct proves the insincerity 
of their professed attachment to Christianity. Yet no candid man 
will deny, that in communities where religion flourishes, the tone 
of moral feeling is far higher than in those where it is compara- 
tively unknown ; nor can it be denied, that in Christian churches 



580 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



a much higher standard of morals is maintained than in the 
world. How rare a thing is it to find a member of a Christian 
church in a jail or a penitentiary. And who, let me ask, are the 
firmest and most zealous opposers of immorality in all its forms ? 
Are they infidels or Christians? 

In works of benevolence what class are found most active? 
Hospitals for the insane and afflicted, asylums for orphans and 
widows, for the mute and the blind — are they not confined to 
Christian countries ? And by whom are plans devised, and labors 
costly and often perilous performed, to civilize and moralize the 
degraded pagan nations? 

But it is unnecessary, I am persuaded, to protract the discussion 
of this point. The moral code of Christianity, it must be acknowl- 
edged, is perfect. It purifies the hearts of individuals, and con- 
trols their conduct. It prompts and encourages them to deeds of 
virtue and benevolence. It approaches the human heart by every 
avenue, and presents every possible motive to holiness and good- 
ness. It extends its hallowed influence over the domestic circle, 
and wisely prescribes the duties growing out of every relation in 
life. In its progress through the world, the wilderness and the 
solitary place are made glad ; and the deserts rejoice and blossom 
as the rose. The mountains and the hills break forth into sing- 
ing, and all the trees of the field clap their hands. Its effects are 
wholly good ; and therefore it is wholly true. 

Second. I propose now to consider very briefly the effects of 
Christianity upon education, general intelligence, and the progress 
of science. Every system of religion has to do with God, his 
perfections and his works ; with man, his nature, character, duty 
and destiny. Education and science travel over a large por- 
tion oi the same territory. Consequently every false system of 
religion loses public confidence just as science progresses. The 
reason is obvious. Such systems inevitably teach concerning God 
and his works, man and his nature, false doctrines ; and science 
detects and exposes their errors. Paganism, in all its forms, has 
uniformly sunk into contempt, as science has successfully carried 
forward its investigations. The hoary superstitions of India, wmich 
have fettered and degraded the minds of many generations, are 
now melting away before its light. " One look through the tele- 
scope," says a late elegant writer, " dispels all the illusions of the 
Brahminical faith, and blots out of existence as many myriads of 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



581 



gods, as it brings into view myriads of stars reflecting the glory 
of the one living and true God." 

Christianity, in its relations to the progress of human learning, 
stands in most striking contrast with all other systems of religion. 
It has maintained its undiminished authority over the most en- 
lightened nations. It has numbered among its humble and de- 
vout disciples many of the brightest ornaments of science. It is 
sufficient to name Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, Bacon, Newton, 
Locke, Grotius, Boyle, Hale, Selden, Addison, Bonnet, Beattie, 
Edwards, Witherspoon, Chalmers, Siliman, Miller, Neander, Tho- 
luck. The list might easily be increased indefinitely. 

Almost every department of human learning has, at one time 
or another, been arrayed against Christianity. She has been 
assailed by great names and by eminent learning. In such men 
as Hobbes and Herbert, Hume and Chesterfield, Voltaire, Yolney, 
and Rousseau, infidelity found its ablest advocates. Christianity 
met its forces in the open field of free discussion, and smote them 
with the sword of Truth. Nay, more — she has laid under contri- 
bution the very sciences, that were triumphantly arrayed against 
her ; and she has sent them forth to furnish multiplied evidences 
of her divine origin and of her high mission to earth. She has 
not only maintained her authority over the most enlightened na- 
tions and individuals, but she has taken science by the hand, and 
led it forth in the path of successful investigation. Who are the 
presidents and the professors in the best ccileges and universities 
in Europe and America. They are Christians. Do you ask 
further evidence, that Christianity is the patron of science? — and 
that without her aid it has made almost no progress? You will 
find such evidence in the following considerations : 

1. Christianity favors general intelligence and the progress of 
human learning, by elevating the moral characters of men. De- 
pravity induces them to seek happiness in the gratification of the 
animal appetites or of a degrading ambition. Its language is— 
"Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die." Or it arms indi- 
viduals and nations against each other to gratify a miserable ava- 
rice or an unhallowed ambition. But when they embrace the 
pure morality of the gospel, and begin to cherish its exalted hopes, 
they no longer find enjoyment in indulgences and pursuits so 
degrading. They desire purer pleasures and more rational enjoy- 
ments ; and they find them in the study of the perfections and the 
works of God whom they adore, and in devising means to improve 



582 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the condition of their fellow-men. The 1. uman mind is by nature 
active and inquisitive ; but depravity of heart employs its noble 
powers in the pursuit of trifles. The heart gives direction to the 
intellect ; when the former is purified, the latter looks up. 

There are apparent exceptions to this rule. The ancient phi- 
losophers of Greece and Rome speculated profoundly or obscurely 
concerning the origin of all things, and concerning the nature and 
the destiny of man ; but their philosophy was fundamentally false 
and demoralizing, and their noble powers systematically misdi- 
rected. The ancient poets wrote beautifully, often sublimely; but 
what an unseemly mixture they exhibit of the pure and impure, 
the sublime and the trifling. They wrote, not to reform but to 
please men ; and therefore they ministered to their ruling passions. 
Even religion was invoked to patronize war, and drunkenness 
and debauchery; and the gods mingled with delight in scenes of 
grossest corruption and the greatest cruelty. 

2. Christianity awakens in the mind a strong desire to know 
all that may be known of the laws of nature and the works of God ; 
for the works of God exhibit and illustrate his perfections. Can 
he who loves and worships God, be indifferent to any of the works 
of his hands? Such, indeed, has been the effect of the religion of 
the Bible in every age. 

The fame of Solomon, as an eminent naturalist, attracted to 
Jerusalem multitudes from the surrounding nations. "And he 
spake of trees, from t'ne cedar-tree that is in Lebanon, even unto 
the hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also of beasts, 
and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came 
of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the 
earth, which had heard of his wisdom." Job, and David, and 
Isaiah were accustomed to contemplate with delight the heavenly 
bodies, and to admire the wisdom, tbe goodness, and the power of 
God in all his works. Job adored the majesty of the Creator, 
" who alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves 
of the sea : who maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the 
chambers of the South." " Where," says Bacon, " he takes knowl- 
edge of the depression of the southern pole, calling it the secrets of 
the south, because the southern stars were in that climate unseen." 
David sunk into insignificance in his own estimrtion, whilst 
he contemplated the greatness of God in the heavenly bodies. 
" When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon 
and the stars which thou hast ordained ; what is man that thou 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



583 



art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him V 
And as he looked out upon the heavens, and contemplated all the 
works of the Most High, he seemed to himself to hear them all 
proclaiming the perfections of their Creator. " The heavens de- 
clare the glory of God ; and the firmament shovveth his handy- 
work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night show- 
eth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their 
voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, 
and their words to the end of the world." When Isaiah, the elo- 
quent prophet, would comfort the pious in their affliction, and en- 
courage them to trust in the mighty God, he exclaimed — " Lift 
up your eyes on high, and behold, who hath created these things, 
that bringeth out their host by number : he calleth them all by 
name, by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power: 
not one faileth." These men contemplated the heavens, not with 
the superstitious veneration of the heathen, who saw in the heav- 
enly bodies the deities who protected and blessed them, or who 
read in their motions the destiny of men ; nor yet with the feeling 
of the irreligious astronomer, who inquires into the laws by which 
they are controled, and admires the wonderful machinery without 
beholding and adoring the power, the wisdom, and the goodness 
of the mighty Architect. 

" The undevout astronomer is mad." 

In nature's works they saw the glory of nature's God. They 
studied the works of God, the God of nature and of revelation, 
that they might acquaint themselves with him, and adore his per- 
fections, illustrated by his works. Their piety awakened a strong 
desire to know all that could be known of creation and its laws. 
Indeed, the inspired writers declared knowledge preferable to silver 
and gold, and to all other possessions, and earnestly exhorted all 
to seek it. " Happy is the man," says Solomon, " that findeth 
wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the mer- 
chandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the 
gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies ; 
and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto 
her. Length of days is in her right hand ; and in her left hand 
riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all 
her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold 
upon her ; and happy is every one that retaineth her." 

3. Christianity not only awakens the desire for knowledge, but 



584 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



it teaches a large amount of that which is most important, and 
gives the clue to further progress. 

1st. It teaches the existence and the perfections of God, and 
that all things were created by him. I need not refer you to par- 
ticular portions of the Scriptures to prove, that they teach the eter- 
nal, underived existence of the one true God, a pure Spirit, pos- 
sessed of infinite perfections, natural and moral. Nor need I do 
more than quote the first verse in the Bible to prove that he is the 
Creator of all things. " In the beginning God created the heavens 
and the earth." Precisely here the minds of the most eminent 
philosophers labored. Gibbon says, "Of the four most celebrated 
schools, the Stoics and Platonists have left us the most sublime 
proofs of the existence and perfections of the First Cause ; but as 
it was impossible for them to conceive the creation of matter, the 
workman in the Stoic philosophy was not sufficiently distinguished 
from the work ; while, on the contrary, the spiritual god of Plato 
and his disciples resembled an idea, rather than a substance. The 
opinions of the Academics and Epicureans were of a less religious 
cast ; but while the modest science of the former induced them to 
doubt, the positive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny, the 
providence of a Supreme Ruler."* All the ancient philosophers, 
without exception, adopted as an axiom — De nihilo nihil, in ni- 
hilum nil posse reverti. That is, that creation and annihilation 
are alike impossible. This fundamental error was fatal to all 
progress in philosophical investigation, and, as we shall presently 
see, exerted a most unhappy influence on morals and religion. 

2d. The Scriptures teach, that man has an immaterial, incor- 
ruptible, immortal mind, as w T ell as a material body. On this 
most important subject there is no obscurity in their language. 
It brings " life and immortality to light." Here again the wisdom 
of philosophers failed them. " The writings of Cicero," says 
Gibbon, " represent in the most lively colors the ignorance, the 
errors and the uncertainty of the ancient philosophers with regard 
to the immortality of the soul. When they are desirous of arm- 
ing their disciples against the fear of death, they inculcate, as an 
obvious, though melancholy position, that the fatal stroke of our 
dissolution releases us from the calamities of life, and that those 
can no longer suffer who no longer exist." Those of them who 
believed in the soul's immortality, denying the possibility of crea- 
tion, held the doctrine of its eternal pre-existence. " The ancient 

* VoL i. p. 19. 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



585 



Atomists," says the learned Cudworth, u concluded, that souls 
and lives, being substantial entities by themselves, were all of 
them as old as any other substance in the universe, and as the 
whole mass of matter, and every smallest atom of it is : that is, 
they who maintained the eternity of the world, did consequently 
assert also eternitatem animorum, — the eternity of souls." 

It was on this ground that Plato and his disciples defended the 
immortality of the soul. It was not generated, said they ; there- 
fore it cannot be corrupted. It always has lived ; therefore it 
always will live. Intimately connected with this opinion, and 
growing out of it, was the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. 
Plato said — that some of the ancient philosophers were not with- 
out suspicion, that what is now called death, is to men more 
properly a nativity or birth into life, and what is called a genera- 
tion into life, was rather to be considered a sinking into death ; 
the former (death) being the soul's ascent out of the gross terres- 
trial bodies to a body more thin and subtile ; and the latter (birth} 
its descent from a purer body to one more gross and terrestrial. 

These fundamental errors involved the philosophers in inextri- 
cable difficulties in all their inquiries, and effectually prevented 
any real progress in natural and mental philosophy. 

3d. The Scriptures teach moral science perfectly. The leading 
faculties of the mind, the intellect, the affections, the conscience 
and the will, are distinctly recognized. Man's free agency and 
accountability are taught with entire clearness. And, as we have 
already seen, their moral code is perfect. All standard writers on 
moral science acknowledge themselves indebted to the Scriptures 
for the principles they advance. Indeed, I know not a respectable 
writer on this most important science, who is not a firm believer 
in the inspiration of the Scriptures. 

I will not now detain you to speak of the Bible as a histc ry of the 
human race for many centuries, and as exhibiting the great prin- 
ciples of civil government; nor will I attempt to prove what I may 
safely affirm — that it presents many of the finest specimens of 
beautiful and sublime prose and poetic composition, and of clear, 
conclusive reasoning, that can be found in the world. Some of 
these points may be very briefly noticed before I close. 

The precise truth which I desire now to impress upon your 
minds, is — that the Scriptures teach a large amount of most im- 
portant truth, and that they srive the true clue to all philosophical 
investigations. 



586 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



4. Before proceeding to illustrate this truth from history, let me 
further state, that Christianity favors the progress of knowledge, 
by occupying the mind with themes adapted to develop and in- 
vigorate the intellectual, as well as the moral pc»vers. If the 
study of mathematics strengthens the intellect, it still more ex- 
pands and invigorates its power, when applied to the study of 
astronomy. For then the mind, whilst making careful calcula- 
tions, contemplates objects vast, sublime, and magnificent. But 
if the heavens be a sublime and glorious subject of inquiry and 
contemplation, how much more the infinite perfections of the 
great Creator of all. If the study of mechai:ical philosophy, 
chemistry, anatomy, and of all the laws of nature, be adapted to 
invigorate the powers of the mind, how much more effectually 
does it accomplish this object, when the mind ascends from these 
finite objects to the great Infinite; when in the works and laws 
of creation it beholds and admires the perfections of the Creator. 
If the study of things temporal, and the continued effort to gam 
and enjoy them, may develop the mental powers ; how much 
more the habitual contemplation of things eternal. What are 
the beauties and sublimities of earth, to the glories of heaven? 
The loftiest aspirations of the man of ambition, dwindle into 
insignificance, when compared with the cherished hopes of the 
humblest Christian. The objects of the Christian's pleasing 
thought are as vast as they are pure and lovely. The contem- 
plation of them, therefore, tends directly and powerfully to develop 
the intellectual powers as well as to purify the heart. 

Turning from the direct contemplation of the principles of 
Christianity, as they are stated in the Scriptures, let us hear the 
testimony of uninspired history. The Reformation of the six- 
teenth century was emphatically a Bible reformation. Its funda- 
mental doctrine was, that the Scriptures contain the whole revela- 
tion of God for the instruction of men in faith and in conduct. 
With only the Bible in their hands, the reformers sought to deliver 
the church from the overwhelming mass of error and corruption 
under which it was crushed. Taking our position, then, by the 
side of the reformers, and looking backward and forward, we may 
be able to form a correct estimate of the effect of Scriptural Chris- 
tianity upon the progress of knowledge. Let us, first, inquire 
what was the state of the world with regard to knowledge and 
science at the commencement of the Reformation. 

In the third cen'ury Origen, the most learned of the Greek 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



587 



fathers, became an ardent admirer of the Platonic philosophy ; 
and believing", as not a few in our day, that revelation could not 
contradict science, he sought so to interpret the Scriptures, as to 
bring them into harmony with the principles of this sublime phi- 
losophy. Not a few of the Christian ministry united with him 
in this effort. "This great man," says Mosheim, "enchanted by 
the charms of the Platonic philosophy, set it up as the test of all 
religion ; and imagined, that the reasons of each doctrine were 
to be found in that favorite philosophy, and their nature and ex- 
tent to be determined by it." And since it was impossible to 
reconcile the literal and obvious meaning of the Scriptures with 
the principles of the Platonic philosophy, it became necessary to 
find in their language a mysterious or hidden sense. Having 
determined the existence of this hidden sense, Origen divided it 
into the moral and mystical ; and the mystical sense he sub- 
divided into the superior or heavenly and the inferior. If, then, 
the literal meaning of the Scriptures could not be made to 
harmonize with the doctrines of Plato, there could be no great 
difficulty in producing harmony by resorting to the hidden sense, 
in some of its divisions and subdivisions. And as this pagan 
philosophy had taught Christian men, that the Scriptures have a 
hidden sense of far greater value than the literal ; it also taught 
them how that sense might be discovered. The divine nature, it 
taught, is diffused through all human souls; or the faculty of 
reason is an emanation from God, and comprehends in it the 
principles of all truth. This celestial flame was to be kindled, 
not by study and investigation, but by silence, solitude, medita- 
tion, and penances by which the body might be emaciated. 
Thus were the simple, sublime truths of the Bible excluded from 
the minds of men, and their excited imaginations became their 
only guide in their search after truth. 

Now for the practical effects of this philosophy. 

1. As it denied the possibility of creation, and held to the eter- 
nity of matter ; it accounted for the existence of moral evil by 
tracing it to the connection of the pure spirit with matter. In 
this there was no impiety, since it was believed that matter was 
not the product of Omnipotence. 

2. If moral evil proceeded from matter, and the mind had be- 
come contaminated by its contact with a material body ; it fol- 
lowed, that the way to attain to moral perfection was to destroy, 
as far as possible, the influence of the body over the mind. To 



588 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



improve the physical condition of men, therefore, and to add to 
the comforts of life, was not only no part of the office of that 
philosophy, but was utterly discountenanced by it. " The ancient 
philosophy," says an able writer, "disdained to be useful. — It 
could not condescend to the humble office of ministering to the 
comfort of human beings. All the schools regarded that office as 
degrading ; some censured it as immoral.'' Seneca thought phi- 
losophy degraded by being applied to useful inventions. Those 
philosophers were right in this view, on the supposition that their 
first principles were true. For to multiply physical comforts, was 
but to pamper the body which was the source of impurity, and 
thus to fetter the soul in its aspirations after moral perfection. 
The true method of improving the condition of men was to 
emaciate the body by fasting and severe discipline; and he w T as 
the best practical philosopher who came nearest committing 
suicide by a lingering process. 

The fruits of this false philosophy ripened fast under the genial 
warmth of Christianity. Philosophers speculated concerning 
moral perfection, and pointed out the way to attain it ; but their 
speculations had no power to inspire men with the ardent desire, 
and to excite them to the pursuit of it. Such a desire Chris- 
tianity awakened ; and it was not lacking in motives. Chris- 
tianity awakened the desire of perfection ; but most unfortunately 
Christians went to philosophers, rather than to the Scriptures, tc 
learn how to gain the desired blessing. In Egypt, therefore, 
where the unnatural union between Christianity and false phi- 
losophy was first effected, many, in the third and following cen- 
turies, retired into caves and deserts, where they macerated their 
bodies with hunger and thirst, and submitted to all the miseries 
of the severest discipline that a gloomy imagination could present. 
"And it is not improbable," says Mosheim, "that Paul, the first 
hermit, was rather engaged by this fanatical system, than by the 
persecution under Decius, to fly into the most solitary deserts of 
Thebais, where he led, during the space of ninety years, a life 
more worthy of a savage animal than of a rational being." 

This philosophical superstition had a most remarkable develop- 
ment, in the fifth century, in the stylites or pillar saints — sancti 
columnares — who stood motionless upon the tops of pillars for 
years together. The most celebrated of these was Simeon, a 
Syrian, who spent thirty-seven years of his life upon five pillars 
of six, twelve, twenty-two, thirty-six, and forty cubits high. These 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



589 



eminent saints, as they were considered, spent their time in fast- 
ings, penances, and prayers, and excited the wonder and admira- 
tion of the superstitious multitude by their worthless virtues. 

If intelligent infidels laugh at this miserable superstition, let 
Plato and the old philosophers have the credit of it. For Paul 
the hermit and Simeon the stylite were but reducing to practice 
the principles of their philosophy ; and admitting the truth of 
that philosophy, we must greatly admire, instead of ridiculing, 
their course of life. Withdrawn from worldly pursuits, they de- 
stroyed their bodily appetites by severe penances, and raised their 
souls toward God by devout meditations and prayers. In such 
men you see the ancient philosophy reduced to practice. 

But during this period, Aristotle divided with Plato the empire 
of mind, and in the ages immediately preceding the Reformation 
had almost expelled him from the schools. The philosophy of 
Aristotle did not differ essentially from that of Plato ; but he was 
the author of a system of dialectics which, together with the fun- 
damental errors of the system, rendered the discovery of truth 
still more difficult. By the aid of his logic the schoolmen shar- 
pened their intellects by the discussion of questions the most 
trivial. 

The ancient philosophy was characterized by perfect sterility. 
False in its first principles, it could make no progress. "The an- 
cient philosophy," says Macaulay, "was a treadmill, not a path. 
It was made up of revolving questions — of controversies which 
were always beginning again. It was a contrivance for having 
much exertion, and no progress." The reason is obvious. Hold- 
ing to the eternity of matter and of mind, the ancient philosophers 
very naturally regarded the question, how things came to be as 
they are, as the first great question to be solved by philosophy. 
Consequently, their gigantic intellects were employed in endless 
theories and conjectures, which could never be more than mere 
theories and conjectures. He who will examine the fundamental 
principles of that philosophy, will no longer wonder that, as Lord 
Bacon says, " from the systems of the Greeks and their subordi- 
nate divisions in particular branches of the sciences during so long 
a period, scarcely one single experiment can be culled that has a 
tendency to elevate or assist mankind, and can be fairly set down 
to the speculations and doctrines of their philosophy." Nor will 
he censure the declaration of Macaulay as too strong, that "words 
and mere words, and nothing but words, had been all the fruit 



590 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



of all the toil of all the most renowned sages of sixty genera- 
tions." 

This sterile philosophy which, incorporated with Christianity, 
withered all its lovely virtues, had received the sanction of coun- 
cils and popes, and, therefore, bore the stamp of infallibility. 
"Driven from its ancient haunts, it had taken sanctuary in that 
church which it had persecuted ; and had, like the daring fienda 
of the poet, placed its seat 

' Next the seat of God 
And with its darkness dared affront his light.' " * 

The wondrous virtues which it had produced in deserts and 
caves, had excited almost universal admiration ; and the men 
whom it had driven mad, had been solemnly canonized. To as- 
sail it. therefore, was to assail Christianity which it had corrupted ; 
and he who had the rashness to make the assault, expected the 
anathemas of the church, and the tortures of the inquisition. 

Such was the state of things w T hen the Reformation aroused 
the world from deep slumber. I have said it was emphatically 
the work of the Scriptures. It rejected at once the infallibility of 
the Church and her multiplied traditions. It held up the Bible 
as the only unerring guide in faith and morals. It translated the 
sacred volume into the vulgar tongue, and put it in the hands of 
the people, and bade them read and understand. The reformers 
saw at once the falsity of the old philosophy which then reigned 
in the church and the university, under the authority of Aristotle ; 
and they attacked it boldly. "The first adversaries Luther at- 
tacked," says D'Aubigne, " were those celebrated schoolmen whom 
he had studied so deeply, and who then reigned supreme in every 
university. He accused them of Pelagianism ; boldly opposing 
Aristotle (the father of the school) and Thomas Aquinas, he un- 
dertook to hurl them from the throne whence they exercised so 
commanding an influence, the one over philosophy, and the other 
over theology." "I desire nothing more ardently," said Luther, 
" than to lay open before all eyes this false system, which has 
tricked the church, by covering itself with a Greek mask, and to 
expose its worthlessness before the world." One year later he 
wrote exultingly — "God works among us our theology and St. 
Augustine make wonderful progress, and are already paramount 
in our university. Aristotle is on the wane, and already totters to 

* Macaulay. 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



591 



his fall, which is near at hand and irreversible." The other re- 
formers agreed with Luther. Zwingle, Bucer, Peter Martyr and 
Calvin had denounced the old philosophy as boldly as he. 

This attack was successful. Wherever the doctrines of the 
Reformation were received, Plato and Aristotle were overthrown, 
and overthrown simply by the Scriptures. " Thus before the 
birth of Bacon," says Macaulay, " the empire of scholastic philos- 
ophy had been shaken to its foundations. There was in the intel- 
lectual world an anarchy resembling that which in the political 
world often follows the overthrow of an old and deeply-rooted gov- 
ernment. Antiquity, prescription, the sound of great names, had 
ceased to awe mankind. The dynasty w T hich had reigned for 
ages was at an end ; and the vacant throne was left to be strug- 
gled for by pretenders." 

The Reformation cleared away the rubbish of ages, and pro- 
claimed freedom of thought. Then Bacon arose. He com 
menced his career as a philosopher with the Bible in his hand j 
and the Bible gave him the first great truths of philosophy, and 
indicated to him the limits of philosophical investigation. It 
taught him — 

1st. That matter and finite spirits are not eternal, but create*, 
by the omnipotent Jehovah. 

2d. That all things by him created are " very good." 

Bacon wrote a confession of faith, drawn from the Scripture?, 
which commences thus : " I believe that nothing is without begin- 
ning, but God ; no nature, no matter, no spirit, but one only, and 
the same God — that he made all things in their first estate good 
— that God created spirits, whereof some kept their standing, and 
others fell : he created heaven and earth, and all their armies and 
generations; and gave unto them constant and everlasting laws, 
which we call nature ; which is nothing but the laws of creation," 
&c. These truths admitted, what is the proper range of philosophic 
investigation ; and what the object it should seek to accomplish ? 
We answer : 

1. If God created all things, animate and inanimate, material 
and spiritual, philosophy has simply to ascertain what he did create, 
and what laws he established. Creation is an infinite miracle, not 
to be explained or comprehended. How completely this simple 
truth explodes all the speculations and theories concerning the 
formation of the world, the eternity of finite spirits and the trans- 
migration of souls. The ancient philosophy utterly mistook the 



592 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



legitimate field of inquiry. Unable to conceive the sublime truth 
declared in the first verse of the Bible — " In the beginning God 
created the heavens and the earth" — it wandered in endless mazes, 
as Bacon says, "fruitful of controversy and barren of effects." 
The inductive philosophy is the legitimate offspring of this sub- 
lime truth. Had it been known to those giant minds, whose 
powers we still admire, even when we reject as most absurd their 
speculations, what progress they might have made in the different 
sciences ! Had Bacon been ignorant of it, his labors would have 
been as fruitless as theirs. 

2. If, as the Bible teaches, all things came from the creative 
hand, " very good f then matter is not inherently evil, and the 
mind is not contaminated by contact with it. Then holiness is 
not to be attained by torturing and destroying the body, nor by 
retiring into caves and deserts. How completely this truth anni- 
hilates the virtues so much extolled by the ancient philosophers, 
and so much admired among professing Christians, misled by their 
false theories. 

If all things created by God are good; then they are de- 
signed for the benefit of man. The body is to be nourished, a9 
the instrument through which the mind now acts. The laws of 
nature are to be learned, that they may minister to the wants of 
men, that their happiness may be greater. Then it is not degrad- 
ing to philosophy to cause it to minister to the comfort of human 
beings. On the contrary this is precisely its province ana its glory. 
The philosopher is not to spend his life in solitude, in meditation 
and fastings, but must imitate the example of the Son of God, 
" who went about doing good." Bacon had in his mind this scrip- 
tural truth when he made usefulness the test of sound philosophy. 
" For which reason," said he, " in the same manner as we are 
cautioned by religion to show our faith by our works, we may very 
properly apply the principle to philosophy, and judge of it by its 
works; accounting that to be futile which is unproductive, and 
still more so, if, instead of grapes and olives, it yield but the this- 
tle and thorns of dispute and contention." 

" Two words," says Macaulay, " form the key of the Baconian 
doctrine — utility and progress." For both, we affirm, Bacon was 
indebted to the Bible. It taught him that God created all things, 
and consequently the work of philosophy is to ascertain what he 
did create and what laws he established. Thus theories give 
place to fact and experiment. It taught him, that all things are 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



593 



good, and therefore the business of philosophy is to apply all to 
the good of man. 

To the Reformation, then, which was the work of the Scrip- 
tures, we are indebted for a sound philosophy, and for progress in 
knowledge and in all the sciences, On this subject I take pleas- 
ure in quoting a. prize essay, presented to the National Institute 
of France by Charles Francis Dominic de Yillers, on "The In- 
fluence of the Reformation by Luther." Of the learning and 
ability displayed in this essay, we need no other evidence than 
the fact, that it had such an award by such an institution. He 
says — "It has been already sufficiently shown above, what an 
imperfect philosophy reigned in the schools before the Reformation, 
and what an extravagant and puerile dialectic was amalgamated 
with the system of the Roman theology, which maintained itself 
by its aid. To support this system was, in fact, for many centu- 
ries, the end of all philosophy ; the theologians, who were gener- 
ally monks, were the only philosophers — A firm, independent phi- 
losophy, which aspired at becoming universal, was, in this state 
of things, a monstrosity ; consequently, nothing of this descrip- 
tion existed before the Reformation. * * * A strange mixture 
of disguised propositions of peripatetism, which was applied in 
the strangest manner to matters of faith and controversy, formed 
all the groundwork of the doctrine of the schools. Subsequent 
to the renovation of letters, some men of talents, with the famous 
Erasmus at their head, had opposed this monkish barbarism. 
But, remaining in the bosom of a church to which scholastic di- 
vinity had become an indispensable auxiliary, how could they 
labor effectually to destroy this support? Such an undertaking 
could only be accomplished by reformers bold enough to quit this 
church, and to establish one separate from it upon the pure prin- 
ciples of the gospel and of reason. It was in this manner that 
the Reformation dethroned the scholastic divinity." And in this 
way, we may add, it prepared the way for all the progress which 
science has since made. 

If we would see the force of this argument in favor of Chris- 
tianity, let us compare the progress of human learning in pagan 
lands, with its progress in Christian countries. Has it made even 
the slightest progress in the former? Has it not decidedly retro- 
graded? What pagan nation now in existence will bear com- 
parison with ancient Greece and Rome? Again, compare countries 
nominally Christian with those where the Bible freely circulates. 

38 



594 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



and Protestantism prevails. Villers said, there was more real 
knowledge in one single Protestant university, as that of Gottin- 
gen, or Halle, or Jena, than in the eight Spanish universities then 
existing. A similar comparison may be made of literary institu- 
tions in Protestant and Roman Catholic countries throughout the 
world. "In these," says Villers, "they teach what must, with or 
without the consent of reason, be believed ; in the others they 
teach how a reasonable belief may be .acquired, on any subject 
whatever. Here the Decretals are given for infallible oracles ; 
there, no other oracle is acknowledged but reason, and the best 
supported facts." How shall we account for the fact, that science 
and Christianity have gone hand in hand in every country, and that 
the former has flourished just as the latter in its purity has pre- 
vailed ; unless we admit, that Christianity is the great patron of 
sound learning ? And how shall we account for the fact, that a 
book embracing so great a variety of subjects as the Bible does, 
written by so many different men, of few pretensions to human 
learning, during the darkest periods of the history of our world, 
does so promote learning and science, unless we admit, that it was 
given by inspiration of God? Is it credible that such men, under 
such circumstances, if uninspired, could write such a book? 

Third. Let us now consider, with great brevity, the effect of 
Christianity upon civil and religious liberty. In every age and in 
almost every country, some form of religion has been established 
by law. The consequence has been, that multitudes have been 
robbed of their dearest rights, and persecuted even unto death for 
conscience' sake. And even in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury neither the principles of civil, nor of religious liberty are gen- 
erally understood. Indeed our happy country is almost the only 
country in the world, where these principles are well understood 
and respected. We propose to inquire how far the world is in- 
debted for the liberty it enjoys to the influence of Christianity. 

Religious liberty is the unrestrained exercise of the right to 
examine all moral and religious questions, and to act in accord- 
ance with one's own convictions of truth, without interfering 
with similar rights of others. This, as the Scriptures clearly 
teach, is an inalienable right. This is evident from the following 
considerations : — ■ 

1. True religion, according to the Bible, is the belief and hearty 
reception of revealed truth, and a corresponding conduct. It is 
unnecessary to refer to particular parts of the Scriptures to prove, 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



595 



that such is the religion there taught. It will not be disputed. 
Now, in the nature of things, belief can be produced only by evi- 
dence ; and a hearty reception of the truth cannot be the effect of 
compulsion. Civil rewards and penalties on account of religious 
belief, therefore, make hypocrites of the unprincipled, and rebels 
of the conscientious ; and thus they corrupt the church by filling 
it with hypocrisy, and weaken the government by alienating from 
it men of principle, who would be its firmest supporters. 

2. God requires every one to examine, and to believe accord- 
ingly. "Search the Scriptures." "Prove all things; hold fast 
that which is good." Such is the language of the Scriptures. 
Now, to forbid any one to examine freely, and thus to form a ra- 
tional faith, is to trample under foot the authority of God. He 
says to each individual — " Search the Scriptures f who, then, shall 
venture to forbid any one to do so ? 

3. Every individual is accountable to God for his own religious 
faith and conduct; and his eternal interests are suspended upon 
these. To forbid freedom of investigation and of worship, there- 
fore, is the height of tyranny and of cruelty. Why will any man 
or class of men step between me and my God in the formation of 
my faith and the regulation of my conduct, when they cannot 
step between us in judgment? "For we must all appear before 
the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the 
things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether 
it be good or bad." 

4. Civil government, though ordained of God, is designed simply 
to protect men in the enjoyment of their rights, and to promote 
their temporal interests. So Christianity teaches. This truth is 
distinctly recognized in the law of Moses. " I charged your judges 
at that time," says Moses, "'saying, hear the causes between your 
brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, 
and the stranger that is with him," Deut. i. 16. The civil and 
the religious laws of the Jews were kept quite distinct. Much 
more should they be distinct now, when no religious qualification 
is required of civil officers. For civil rulers, then to legislate con- 
cerning religious faith and worship, is as glaring a perversion of 
their office, as for ministers of the gospel by virtue of their office, 
to claim authority in civil matters. It is true, that civil govern- 
ment and religion are often concerned about the same things, as 
blasphemy, perjury, murder, theft, &c. But these things have 
both a civil and a religious aspect. It is only with reference to the 



596 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



former, that the civil law takes cognizance of them. " Oui law, 
says Blackstone, "considers marriage in no other light than as a 
civil contract. The holiness of the matrimonial state is left en- 
tirely to the ecclesiastical law : the temporal courts not having 
jurisdiction to consider unlawful marriage as a sin, but merely as 
a civil inconvenience." 

The Scriptures not only inculcate the general principles of reli- 
gious liberty, but determine the precise limits of civil authority. 

1st. Civil rulers may not dictate to the people their religious 
faith or worship. Such authority belongs not to their office. 

2d. They may not require subjects to do what God has forbid- 
den, or forbid them doing what God has commanded. " Upon these 
two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation," 
says Blackstone. " depend all human laws ; that is to say, no human 
laws should be suffered to contradict these. * * * If any human 
law should allow or enjoin us to commit murder, we are bound to 
transgress that human law, or else we must offend both the natu- 
ral and the divine." God has not authorized civil magistrates 
either to enact laws binding the conscience, or to abolish those 
laws by which he has bound it. Upon these plain principles acted 
our Lord and his Apostles. Two of those Apostles, forbidden by 
the Jewish sanhedrim to preach the gospel, made this noble an- 
swer : " Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto 
you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the 
things which we have seen and heard." Upon the same broad 
principle Luther took his stand before the Diet of Worms. Truly 
sublime was the stand taken by a humble monk before Charles V. 
and his princes, and in the midst of a most excited multitude. 
The eyes of Christendom were fastened upon him with intensest 
interest. He was commanded to retract what he had published. 
He answered in a firm tone — "If I am not convinced by proof 
from Holy Scripture or by cogent reasons : if I am not satisfied by 
the very texts I have cited, and if my judgment is not in this way 
brought into subjection to God ? s word, I neither can nor will retract 
anything : for it cannot be right for a Christian to speak against his 
conscience. I stand here, and can say no more : — God help me." 

3d. The civil law must be obeyed in all points, within the proper 
limits of civil jurisdiction. " Let every soul be subject unto the 
higher powers. For there is no power but of God : the powers that 
be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, 
resisteth the ordinance of God." " Put them in mind," said Paul 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



597 



to Titus, " to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey ma- 
gistrates, to be ready to every good work." All systems of human 
laws are, like their authors, imperfect; and consequently great in- 
justice is often done in the administration of law. But inasmuch 
as it is far better to have an imperfect government, than anarchy 
and misrule, the Scriptures require, as a duty we owe to God, to 
obey even imperfect laws. " Wherefore ye must needs be subject, 
not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake." 

Civil government, as the Scriptures teach, is an ordinance of 
God, not for the advantage of the chief ruler, or of an aristocracy, 
but of the people. To the virtuous, the civil ruler is to be " a 
minister of God for good," and " a revenger to execute wrath 
upon him that doeth evil." Consequently civil government 
should impose on its subjects, individually or collectively, no 
greater restraint than the greatest good of the whole requires. 
Just so far as any government goes beyond this limit in restrain- 
ing individual liberty, it ceases to be what God designed it — for 
the good of the people ; and the civil officer ceases to be to them 
" a minister of God for good." 

Civil government is an ordinance of God ; but since he has not 
appointed any particular form of government, it is evident that 
every nation has the right to choose any form which to them 
may seem best adapted to promote their interests, and to modify 
that form as often as they may deem it wise so to do. God gave 
to the Jews a civil government. In their folly they grew weary 
of it, and demanded a king. Samuel was directed to make no 
opposition to their w T ishes beyond warning and remonstrance. 
What stronger evidence need we of the right of a nation to 
modify or change its form of government, than the fact that the 
Jews were allowed to change a form divinely appointed? 

But civil office confers power, which, even under the best regu- 
lated governments, may be abused. Christianity bids rulers re- 
member, that as they are God's ministers, they are accountable 
to him for the manner in which they discharge the duties of their 
office. The Scriptures address them in such language as the 
foil wing: "Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, 
ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice 
with trembling. Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish 
from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little." The bold 
and fearless Isaiah thus addressed the Jews, in the days of great 
corruption and oppression : " Thy princes are rebellious and com- 



598 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

panions of thieves : every one loveth gifts, and followeth after 
rewards : they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of 
the widow come before them. Therefore, saith the Lord, the 
Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of 
mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies. And I will 
turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy dross, and 
take away all thy tin: and I will restore thy judges as at the 
first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning. Afterwards thou 
shalt be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city." 

Such are the principles of civil and religious liberty inculcated 
in the sacred Scriptures. That they are the true principles of 
liberty, will not be denied. But where do we find them recog- 
nized and respected? We answer, where the Scriptures are 
most revered, and best understood. These principles were pro- 
claimed by the Reformation of the sixteenth century, Co which 
great event whatever there is in the world of true liberty, is 
traceable. It was, as we have said, emphatically a Bible Refor- 
mation. That we may appreciate the influence of Christianity 
in securing freedom to men, let us, for a moment, consider the 
state of things before the Reformation, when the Bible was a 
prohibited book. 

The doctrine then prevailed, that the pope and his bishops had 
the right divinely conferred to dictate to the people their religious 
faith and their morals ; and that to call in question their infalli- 
bility, was a crime to be visited with the severest civil penalties. 
The civil ruler who refused to exterminate heretics by fire and 
sword, did so at the peril of his crown, if not of his life. For 
crowns and kingdoms were believed to be at the disposal of the 
Pope. The clergy, sustained by that most horrible institution, 
the Inquisition (which even in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury disgraces Rome), exercised a severe censorship over the press ; 
and authors, publishers, printers, booksellers and readers, trembled 
at their dreadful authority. The human mind with all its noble 
powers was crushed to the earth. The fate of John Huss, burned 
by the Council of Constance in shameful disregard of the Em- 
peror Frederick's safe-conduct, and of Galileo, imprisoned in the 
inquisition for his astronomical discoveries, were a fearful warn- 
ing to all against the exercise of their dearest rights. " Let us 
only reflect," says Villers, "on the immense train of censures, 
prohibitions and inquisitors employed by the Romish church tG 
keep every eye closed, at a period in which every new truth be- 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



599 



came a heresy, that is to say, a crime deserving the severest 
punishment, and against which all the rigor of the secular arm 
was demanded ; and we shall shudder at the danger incurred by 
humanity before the sixteenth century." These doctrines, to- 
gether with that of the divine right of kings to tyrannize over 
their subjects, rendered the existence of liberty an impossibility. 

The first effective attack upon these despotic doctrines was 
made by the reformers. Long, indeed, had the Waldenses borne 
a solemn and a suffering testimony against them. Wickliffe, 
and Huss, and Jerome of Prague had ventured to disobey popes 
and kings ; but an almost Egyptian darkness enshrouded and 
oppressed the nations. Only the faint glimmerings of the morn- 
ing star of the day of freedom had been seen. But Luther had 
found a Bible in his convent ; and gradually its pure light had 
penetrated the thick veil of superstition which darkened his 
understanding. Soon his stirring voice aroused all Europe 
from profound slumber, and made the pretended successor of 
Peter tremble on his throne. "In Geneva, Calvin and Beza, 
rejected by their own country," says Yillers, " established a new 
and powerful focus of religious reform. The first fruit of it was 
'she liberty of Geneva." To this place fled Scotch and English 
tsxiles from the persecutions of " the bloody Mary," to become 
H intoxicated with republicanism and independence." A multi- 
tude of men of talents, says the writer already quoted, have 
issued from Geneva, who, as writers, and as men in office, have, 
in the most decided manner, influenced the different states of 
Europe. 

If you would get a clear view of the effects of Christianity 
upon civil and religious liberty, begin with that wonderful man, 
John Knox, who had sat at the feet of John Calvin, and followed 
the Presbyterian church of Scotland in her struggles against 
tyranny, through the reigns of the Jameses and Charleses, to the 
ignominious flight of James II. and the establishment of William 
and Mary on the English throne. The final crisis which turned 
the scales in favor of freedom, was brought on by the famous 
Archbishop Laud and Charles 1L, in the mad attempt to force 
upon the Scotch a form of government and a liturgy which they 
abhorred. " To this step," says Macaulay, " taken in the mere 
wantonness of tyranny, and in criminal ignorance or more 
criminal contempt of public feeling, our country owes her free- 



600 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 



dom. The first performance of the foreign ceremonies produced 
a riot. The riot rapidly became a revolution." 

These principles, taught in the Scriptures, proclaimed by the 
Reformation, nourished and matured in the stormy history of 
Scotland and England, were transplanted in our own country ; 
and here have they borne such fruits as have never before been 
enjoyed. The noble men and women who laid the foundations 
of our free government were Christians, fled from persecution, 
that in the wilds of the American wilderness they might enjoy 
unmolested the rights of conscience. For the great principles of 
civil government they sought in the Word of God. True, they 
were not altogether free from prejudice, and therefore did not, at 
first, get a full view of some of the important principles there 
taught; but further investigations dispelled all darkness, and re- 
suited in the organization of the noblest government the world 
ever saw. "They brought with them into the new world," says 
De Tocqueville, " a form of Christianity, which I cannot better 
describe, than by styling it a democratic and republican religion. 
This sect contributed powerfully to the establishment of a democ- 
racy and a republic ; and from the earliest settlement of the 
emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has 
never been dissolved." 

Thus do we find, in the sacred Scriptures those great principles 
of civil and religious liberty which have made our country the 
freest and happiest country on the globe, which are now becom- 
ing diffused through all nations, and by which all tyranny will 
be ultimately overthrown. "Who can foretell," said Yillers, 
writing when our republic was yet in its infancy, " all that may 
result in the two worlds, from the seductive example of the in- 
dependence conquered by the Americans ? What new position 
would the world assume, if this example were followed? and 
without doubt it will be in the end. Thus two Saxon monks 
will have changed the face of the globe." The Reformation, he 
remarks, introduced a new order of things. " Powerful republics 
were founded. Their principles, still more powerful than their 
arms, were introduced into all nations. Hence arose great revo- 
lutions, and those which may yet arise, are doubtless incal- 
culable." 

Christianity has not only laid the broad foundations of civil and 
religious liberty, but it still moulds and sustains the particular laws 
enacted. It is a remarkable fact, that the Jews were the first na- 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



601 



tion who had a written constitution, and a written code of laws. 
It is a fact even more remarkable, that many of the most impor- 
tant laws of the most enlightened nations have been borrowed 
from the law of Moses. And yet the people to whom this excel- 
lent code of laws was given, had but just escaped from a long-con- 
tinued and degrading bondage. And now, as in past ages, the 
best systems of laws in the world are to be found in Christian 
countries ; and in those countries, more than in any other, the 
authority of law is supreme. There the people are more intelli- 
gent ; they better understand their own and each other's rights ; 
and to support the laws, is not only their true interest, but their 
religious duty. " Despotism," as De Tocquevilie well remarks, 
" may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possi- 
ble that society should escape destruction, if the moral tie be not 
strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed ? and 
what can be done with a people which is its own master, if it be 
not submissive to Divinity ?" 

We are authorized, I think, in view of this discussion, to come 
to the following conclusions : 

1st. That whatever the world now enjoys of civil and religious 
liberty, it owes to the Bible and Christianity j and that the prog- 
ress of the principles of true liberty depends upon the progress of 
Christianity. Both the past history and the present state of the 
world justify this conclusion. The permanency of our free insti- 
tutions, we are accustomed to say, depends upon the virtue and 
the intelligence of the people ; and true virtue and general intelli- 
gence can be maintained only by Christianity. 

2d. Christianity is not more decidedly the enemy of tyranny 
than of radicalism and anarchy. It claims even for the humblest 
their inalienable rights, and requires the most honorable to obey 
the powers that be. It throws its shield over the domestic circle, 
and sanctifies the relations of husband and wife, parent and child. 
It condemns equally the tyranny of the husband and the cruelty 
of the parent on the one hand, and the unfaithfulness of the wife 
and the disobedience of the child on the other. It utterly repudi- 
ates the levelling and demoralizing principles of Socialism in all 
its phases. It is eminently a liberalizing, yet conservative power. 

3d. The Bible is the word of God. How, if it be not, shall we 
account for the fact, that though written in ages when true lib- 
erty was unknown, it yet inculcates the true principles of liberty 
in all their fulness? — and is now the great patron of rational 



602 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



freedom ? — that tho'jgh written, for the most part, when .lie word 
of the king was law, and politics and religion were everywhere 
united, it contains the wisest laws, and draws so accurately the 
limits of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction? In a word, how 
shall we account for it, that Christianity has done, and is doing 
for liberty, civil and religious, just what it has done, and is doing 
for morals and for science? Can we persuade ourselves, that the 
writers of the books which constitute the Bible, as men unin- 
spired, were so inconceivably before all other men in their knowl- 
edge of the rights of men ? 

4th. Let us finally consider, with great brevity, the effects of 
Christianity upon the happiness of men. That God is a being 
of infinite benevolence, I need not attempt to prove ; nor need I 
adduce proof, that a system of religion from him would promote 
the highest happiness of his rational creatures. I may also as- 
sume without proof, that false principles can no more promote 
permanently the happiness of men, than true morality. If, then, 
it can be made to appear, that Christianity does secure to those 
who embrace it the most exalted happiness, it (vill follow as a 
legitimate and certain conclusion, that it is from God. That it 
does effect this object, will appear from the following considera- 
tions : — 

1st. It most effectively promotes the purest morality and the 
most exalted virtue. It thus delivers those who embrace it from 
all the unhappiness produced by immorality in its various forms. 
And who that has read the history of the past, or that is ac- 
quainted with the present state of the world, does not know how 
large a proportion of all the wretchedness of men is traceable, 
mediately or immediately, to their evil passions and the conduct 
to which those passions impel them. But the influence of religion 
is not merely or chiefly negative. The fear of God and the ex- 
pansive benevolence with which it fills the heart, cause us to de- 
light in relieving the afflicted, and in promoting the happiness of 
all. How happy will be the condition of the human race, when 
this religion shall be universally diffused, and every man shall 
rejoice to do good to his fellow-men. 

2d. It promotes general intelligence and the progress of learn- 
ing, and thus puts men in possession of many sources of enjoy- 
ment, and causes the works of God and the laws of nature to 
minister to their happiness. Who of us would be willing to ex- 
change th pleasures afforded by tl 3 knowledge he possesses of 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 603 



the works and laws of nature, for all the treasures of the Indies ? 
And who can number the enjoyments afforded us by the achieve- 
ments of science, of which pagan nations are deprived? 

3d. It promotes civil and religious liberty, leads to the enact- 
ment and the support of wise and wholesome laws ; and thus 
secures to men the enjoyment of their dearest rights, and gives 
them in their lawful pursuits a delightful feeling of security. 
Every man sits under his own vine and fig-tree unmolested, 
worshipping God according to the dictates of his own conscience, 
and rejoicing in the fruits of honest industry. These inestimable 
blessings has Christianity conferred upon our country in a high 
degree ; and Christianity only can preserve them as a rich heri- 
tage to our children. 

4th. It imparts to those who embrace it the most exalted hopes, 
and consequently the most exalted joys. The human mind is so 
constituted, that it cannot be satisfied with present enjoyments, 
however great, but intensely desires future, unending bliss. It 
is, therefore, constantly looking forward, and fearing or hoping, 
as its prospects seem to become darker or brighter. Many of its 
troubles arise from anticipated evils; and many of its sweetest 
pleasures, from expected good. Christianity meets these desires 
of the human mind, and affords them the highest gratification. 
The Christian believes himself a child of God, and, therefore, an 
heir of glory. He has the promise of a future life — a life of per- 
fect holiness, of ever-increasing knowledge, and of unmingled 
joy. His future home is described, in the beautifully figurative 
language of Scripture, as a city whose walls are of the most 
precious stones, whose gates are pearls, whose streets are paved 
with purest gold, whose light is Jehovah himself, whose inhabit- 
ants are clothed in garments of spotless white, indicative at once 
of their purity and of their happiness, whose glory and bliss are 
eternal. Cheered by such a hope, the Christian can rejoice 
greatly in the midst of afflictions and troubles, saying with Paul 
the apostle, " I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are 
not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed 
in us." And this hope, whilst it wonderfully smooths the rugged 
path of life, and imparts the sweetest pleasure, powerfully excites 
the Christian to holy living, and raises him above the tempta- 
tions by which he is constantly assailed. Exclude from the mind 
the light of the Scriptures, and how dark, even to the wisest, is 
the eternal future. Is the soul immortal? They who have 



604 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY, 



relied on reason and the light of nature, give contradictory 
answers. If immortal, what is to be its future condition? What 
has it to hope for? Is there a heaven or a hell? Can God con- 
sistently forgive sins? If he can, on what conditions will he do 
it ? The only answers to these most important questions are 
vague conjectures and contradictory assertions. Thus all that is 
clear to man is left in perfect uncertainty, and the exalted 
hopes of the future give place to the grovelling sentiment — "Let 
us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 

These are some, not all, the pleasures flowing from Christi- 
anity. But in this life we see its power but imperfectly developed, 
and consequently the happiness it imparts,but imperfectly enjoyed. 
Men are here in the infancy of their being ; and they learn im- 
perfectly the elements of the sublime science taught in the Scrip- 
tures. An eternity of perfect holiness, of rapidly increasing 
wisdom, and of more than angelic happiness alone can unfold 
its " unsearchable riches." The peaceful and triumphant death 
of the righteous gives the clearest view afforded in the present 
state, of the glorious excellency of the religion of Christ Jesus. 

To what conclusions may we legitimately come from the very 
imperfect view of this whole subject as now presented ? 

1. That the Bible is the word of God. Is not this conclusion 
both legitimate and inevitable ? Do you say, no? Then take a 
bold stand, and maintain the following positions : — 

1st. That a succession of vile impostors and deceivers (for such 
were the writers of the books which compose the Bible, if they 
were not inspired) through a period of fifteen hundred years, 
when universal corruption prevailed amongst all nations, became 
the authors of the purest code of morals the world ever saw T — a 
code condemning most severely vice in all its forms and shades, 
commending most strongly every virtue that can adorn the 
human character, and enforcing its requirements by every pos- 
sible motive, approaching the mind with its persuasions to virtue 
by every avenue ! — a code of morals which has been cherished 
by the good and hated by the evil in every age, and which, 
wherever it has been received as divine, has dried up the foun- 
tains of pollution and misery, and opened those of purity and 
joy ! — a code which has proved alike an inestimable blessing to 
individuals, to fami ies, to communities, and to nations ! Come 
forward and boldly naintain, that false prrcjiples produce purer 



THE MOEAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



605 



morals and more elevated virtue, than the truth, ana, there! ore, 
that falsehood is a greater blessing to men than the truii ! 

2d. Then proclaim to the world, that a succession of ignorant, 
unprincipled men, in the darkest ages of the world's history, 
wrote a book embracing in its vast range not only theology, but 
several of the most important branches of science, as history, 
chronology, geography, law, mental and moral science, &c. — 
which book has successfully asserted its claims, as a divine reve- 
lation, over the most enlightened nations, and over many of the 
most gigantic intellects richly stored with human learning; nay, 
which gave to the greatest philosophers the true clue to their dis- 
coveries, and is the most successful patron of learning in all its 
branches ! Proclaim it, that ignorance is wiser than wisdom — 
that darkness shines more brightly than the light ! 

3d. Go further, and affirm, that those degraded, ignorant men 
did better understand, and more clearly teach the great principles 
of liberty, civil and religious, did more fully define the duties 
and guard the rights of individuals in all the relations of life, 
than any other men who have lived ; and through their writings 
have broken, and are breaking the yoke of tyranny, and pro- 
claiming liberty to the nations ! 

4th. Tell it to all, that the greatest imposture the world eve* 
saw, has been the greatest blessing the world ever enjoyed — has 
done more than all other causes to dry up the fountains of human 
crime and wretchedness, to make every man a blessing to his 
fellow-men and earth a blooming paradise ; to meet and satisfy 
the noblest aspirations of the human mind, inspire it with glorious 
hopes, smooth the rough pathway of life, and make the dying 
hour an hour of peace, and triumph, and joy ! 

He who is not prepared to assert absurdities so glaring, must 
acknowledge the conclusiveness of the argument, and admit, that 
"all Scripture is given by inspiration of God." 

2. He who would promote most effectually the highest interests 
of men, must put into their hands the inspired volume, and bring 
them, as far as possible, under its hallowed influence. All 
schemes of reform which rest not upon its teaching, will, as they 
have ever done, not only fail, but will aggravate the evils they are 
designed to remove. The Bible alone strikes at the prolific cause 
of human misery, which is sin, and points out clearly the path 
of real prosperity and happiness. 

3. Young men especially, should regard the claims of the 



606 



THE MORAL EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Bible, and acquaint themselves with its doctrines. Its history, 
its science, its literature, its morals, its grace, its glorious hopes, 
all claim their attention. "Wherewithal," asked David, the 
king of Israel, "shall a young man cleanse his way?" He 
answers — " By taking heed thereto according to thy word." 
Multitudes of young men of fairest promise have fallen under 
the temptations that have assailed them ; but not one ever fell, 
till he forsook that Book — "the light to the feet and the lamp to 
the path." 

But we are all immortal. The interests of thb life are the 
merest trifles, compared with the interests of the eternal future. 
We are all sinners ; and in the Bible only we find a Saviour and 
a heaven. He died for us, and rose again. He is able to save tc 
the uttermost. Repent, believe, and live forever, 



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